


the exalted march

by rievu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, also delving more into elvhen culture, and what the dales were like before their fall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2020-04-07 16:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rievu/pseuds/rievu
Summary: For all his words, Elandrin broke his blood bonds and tore free from the roots of his clan and burned himself off the tree of the Dalish. For a human woman.Ellana cannot understand it. She cannot understand the depth of the love that was enough to drive Elandrin from the Emerald Knights and the Dales. She cannot understand why that was enough for Elandrin to spark a raging war along the dry kindling of their borders. But when she looks over at the Right Hand of the Divine, she wonders if she is following Elandrin’s path again. She is no longer a child, no longer a simple knight. She is one of the High Commanders of the Dales. She has too much to lose and exceptionally little to gain except for a flickering spark of hope and the fluttering tremors of a feeling that she dares not name in her heart.// a different version of the exalted march where two commanders meet and try to forge something better out of war





	1. Chapter 1

“High Commander Ellana,” the scout pants out. “The _shemlen_ are advancing.”

Ellana stands up, knocking over her chair as she moves. _“What,”_ she hisses out in a whisper that is torture-soft. She hurries out of the tent, leaving the scout in her wake, and she reaches for the hilt of her spirit-blade hanging from her belt. She sends up a silent prayer of thanks to Mythal; she’s grateful that she decided to spend one more hour poring over her battle maps and plans instead of going to sleep.

In the distance, she can already see dim lights bobbing up and down. The scout was right; the Chantry forces are advancing on them. Somehow, the sight of the Exalted March never fails to grow old, and it always strikes a sharp stab of worry deep in Ellana’s heart.

But wait. Ellana stops in her tracks and stares at the lights. Why would they carry lights with them? Would it not be easier to sneak towards their camp under the cover of night? Why in Mythal’s name would they break their stealth like that? Ellana’s lips twist into a frown as she stares at them, but she has no time to waste. She hurries forward and reaches the center of the camp where her Knights are slowly stirring from their slumber.

Ellana now reaches for her curved horn carved out of halla antlers from the small pouch at her belt. She holds her breath as she sends up one last prayer to Mythal, and then, she blows the horn to call her soldiers to arms. The sound resonates and grows, building up to the familiar crescendo of war that Ellana is now unfortunately intimate with, and it breaks all of her soldiers out of their dreams and into the waking world.

Ellana reaches one of her officers — Merrill of Clan Sabrae — who peers out at the battlefield ahead of them and the bobbing lights that glow brighter and brighter as they arrive closer. “There is something wrong with that,” she quietly says. “They should not be glowing like that. Something is wrong.”

“I know something is wrong,” Ellana snaps. She has no patience for conversations like these, not when there is another battle right in front of them. “We must defend our position. We cannot let them get a single step closer to the city.”

Adahlennar looms behind them. The name means “a forest of years” and the name is apt for the city that lies right between the Emerald Graves and the Dirthavaren. Not only does Adahlennar hold a large portion of their archives and artifacts, losing Adahlennar means giving the Chantry a direct line to the graves of their ancestors and the larger cities of the Dales. Ellana would rather die before letting that happen.

“Be careful, High Commander,” Merrill warns. Her eyes reflect the light from the campfire and turn her irises into flat discs of light. “Something is off about that platoon. Be watchful, be wary.”

“I could say the same to you as well,” Ellana huffs out. She reaches out to tap Merrill’s shoulder and says, “Remember what I told you about your blood?”

Merrill nods. “Only in dire circumstances,” she recites back to Ellana.

Ellana nods and quietly says, “And even in dire circumstances, do not waste your blood if you have an alternate choice. Remember, Merrill of Clan Sabrae. I did not pick you as one of my officers for nothing. Your life is valuable, and we need you in our ranks for as long as you possibly can. Your mind is one of the sharpest we have, and we need your work and your plans preserved. Do not waste your life-blood and die on the battlefield. Do you understand?”

Merrill nods once more, and Ellana has to be satisfied with that. Merrill of Clan Sabrae might be eccentric in her mannerisms and reviled for her occasional dabblings in blood magic, but Merrill of Clan Sabrae is one of the brightest scholars in the Dales when it comes to the secrets of Arlathan. They almost named Merrill _harellan,_ but Ellana recruited both her brother and Lyna of Clan Mahariel to vouch for her. It is thanks to Merrill that the Dalish communication lines are vastly improved with stones of farspeech, spells of messaging and sending, and a few restored eluvians. Frankly, Ellana would rather have Merrill ensconced in Halamshiral in the Chamber of Dreams or in the Hall of Legacies to continue her studies and experiments for the benefit of the Dales, but Merrill chose to be here on the battlefield instead with her brethren. That is a choice that Ellana has to respect.

She joins her soldiers and leads the Emerald Knights into battle with a high war cry. Her hands are stretched out, searching for threads of magic that filter beyond the Veil, and she lights up the battlefield with the first arc of magic. Lightning courses through the air and strikes down with deadly accuracy that Ellana has perfected over regiments of Chantry soldiers battering the Dales. Her Knights and her soldiers use the lightning as a guide to find their targets, and the first volley of Dalish arrows soar over the field to pierce into the hearts of men.

This is a game that she must play to win despite its brutality.

The first few lines of men fall from a distance, and her foot soldiers take that as an opportunity to charge. A few of her Emerald Knights ride astride halla laced with ironbark armor and ride alongside them as cavalry. The Knights' hounds —  bred from the wolves of Arlathan — bound beside the halla and the Knights with their jaws open and slavering for battle. Ellana’s lips press into a thin line as she watches them advance. She doesn’t like this style of warfare. Guerrilla warfare is far better, but in this field, there is almost no place to hide save for the patches of taller grass and a large outcropping of rock in the distance. However, both places are too close to enemy lines for her to risk assassins or different styles of combat. She doesn't have enough forces located here to try a flanking maneuver; most of their forces are concentrated on the eastern front. Frontal assault is the only way now.

Ellana expects a few foot-soldiers to fall in battle. It’s the sad nature of war. However, she doesn’t expect every single soldier in the first line to fall amidst geysers of fire and ice that jet up from the ground in plumes of magic. She watches, absolutely aghast, as magical trap after trap springs shut on her soldiers. Since when did the Chantry soldiers ever use _magic_ in their wars?

And now, Ellana realizes what those bobbing lights were for. Now, the mages step up to the forefront of the Chantry regiments, shielded by the wall of templars, and raise their staffs up in the air to combat the Dalish. The traps subside, but Ellana has no doubt that there are more lying in the space between the Chantry and her forces. She chokes her shuddering sob down and calls out, “Archers, target the mages if you can! Mages, I want frost to extinguish the fires and lightning down on the field to trigger any additional traps and identify any hidden assasins. Soldiers, hold _back!”_ She purposefully adds magic to the weight of her words so that every single one of her soldiers can hear it while the Chantry forces remain deaf to her orders.

Her soldiers reshuffle with those of magical talent stepping forward. If the magic wasn't enough, her message is carried swiftly through word of mouth and signals that the soldiers and Emerald Knights make with their stance and their hands. Ellana grimly looks over her troops and nods with approval. The Dalish are not so clearly defined as the Chantry. Mages and non-mages are alike in terms of training and skill with their weapons, and she watches as some draw swords while some draw bows and arrows. All of their weapons glint with magic forged by the blacksmiths of June, and they start weaving together strands of magic in the air to rain down hellfire on the Chantry forces.

In this way, they slowly make their way across the field. Ellana orders her non-mages to pair up with a mage, and the battle descends sharply into a field of organized chaos. She grits her teeth and bears her spirit blade before she dives into the fray herself.

Battle is something that quickly becomes a rhythm for Ellana, and she starts cutting down swathes of simple foot-soldiers with ease. However, her eyes focus in on the mages, still hiding behind the templars’ shields. The templars are calling down their divine smites, and Ellana glimpses some of her mages fall under the weight of the smites. The acrid scent of burning flesh fills the battlefield, and smoke from the _shemlen's_ mages' fire stings her eyes. However, she has to carry on.

Some of her Emerald Knights accompany her as she starts darting through the battlefield with blood trailing behind her. Lindiranae of Clan Ghilain — one of her finest Knights — is by Ellana’s side as she slices through the bodies of the Chantry soldiers. Cillian of Clan Ralaferin is another one of Ellana’s arcane warriors, and his magic soars over Ellana to pierce through the templars’ armor and burn them from the inside-out. They both watch over Ellana’s back as she drags her people out of the traps.

Sometimes, she finds them to be already dead, encircled by forceful magic that tears the life from their bones. It’s not like the Dalish styles of magic by any means. No, this is more of a Tevinter style, and Ellana hates the Chantry even more for them. Hypocrites, all of them. But for the ones that are alive, Ellana _tries._ Her gauntlets do nothing to protect her hands against the blistering heat of the traps, but she works her own mana through the bars of the trap and breaks it from the inside-out.

Then, she watches her Emerald Knights start to falter. Some of their mages are already down, either by magic or by arrow, but Ellana’s pupils dilate when she sees her first Knight crumple to the ground with blood oozing out of the gaping wound on his abdomen. The Knight's halla is already dead by the templar's feet, and the Knight's hound is barely alive. The templar pulls his blade out of the Knight with a wet squelch, and fury blinds Ellana for a brief, bitter second. She forces herself to stay rational and surveys the battlefield. She sinks her gaze into the depths of the Fade and relooks at the world with a Dreamer's eyes. Against the fabric of the Fade, she glimpses traps still glittering in the field. When she shakes herself out of the double vision, she sees templars upon templars still standing. Their breastplates emblazoned with the Chantry's symbols glint against the burning fires that consume her people, and the divine smites that they summon only illuminate them further. Her people are limping, stumbling, burning,  _dying._ She only has one option left if she wants her troops to live.

“Retreat!” she calls out. Her voice cracks, and she repeats, “Retreat!” She lifts her halla horn to her mouth and trumpets out a brief call. Two short bursts and one long call. The signal for retreat. Then, Ellana hefts her blade and starts slicing down as many soldiers and mages as she can reach. Her magic swirls around her in a halo of deadly light as she tries to cover her soldiers’ retreat back to the camp.

Lindiranae protests, but Ellana can’t hear her over the sounds of her people _dying._ “No,” she orders. “Retreat and take the rest of the Knights with you. This is a direct order from a High Commander of the Dales.”

A few of her officers and a few priestesses remain on the battlefield, swathed in thick magic, and Ellana struggles her way through to them. “No!” she cries out. “Go back!” She doesn’t have the time to sound the call again when a few templars start to bear down on her.

A flash of red downs the first templar, and Ellana uses the distraction to cast a wave of glyphs on the ground. If they want to play with traps, Ellana will give them exactly what they want. The glyphs explode when another templar blindly stumbles away from the red, and frost snaps over their ankles and climbs up their skin and armor to encase them in a column of ice.

Ellana darts away from them to see Merrill with her wrists bleeding crimson. Her eyes are wide as she stares at Ellana, and she calls out, “High Commander!”

“Merrill of Clan Sabrae, I order you to _retreat,”_ Ellana screams over the sound of war cries and the sounds of death. “Leave now! Cease your blood magic immediately! You must survive this battle!”

“No, I will not leave you here,” Merrill yells back. She lifts her hands up, and the few templars and mages in front of her pause, driven wild by the blood Merrill drives into their minds.

Ellana takes advantage of their momentary pause to swing her spirit blade through their limbs. They fall to the ground with dead eyes, and Ellana whirls back toward Merrill. “You must go back,” Ellana barks out. “Take a message back to the Dales, back to Halamshiral. You must let the other Scions know that the Chantry is using _mages_ now for their unholy war. Now, retreat! This is a direct order from your superior. As a High Commander of the Dales and a Scion, I order you to leave this battlefield _now.”_

“But,” Merrill starts.

“No,” Ellana thunders out. She raises her blade to the midnight sky and the twin moons to call down an entire storm that hails down meteors of fire down. It saps the mana from her like nothing else, and Ellana almost buckles to the ground. She does not wait to hear Merrill’s response and instead, she charges forward.

Some people crawl, some people limp, but slowly and surely, her people start to retreat. Ellana almost trips over the dead bodies, but her only response is to keep on going. She refuses to let her people die. Never that. She will not let Adahlennar and the Dales fall to such a petty, hypocritical tactic like this. This only proves that the Chantry is willing to stoop this low and betray their own values for the sake of a victory.

If they want to play with magic, then let them play with magic. Ellana has lived and breathed magic for at least thirty years’ worth of life.

It comes to the point where she is the last Dalish elf on the battlefield, and the bodies start piling up around her. She chokes down a potion to replenish her mana and her health, but she is the last one. Merrill is the second to last to retreat, but finally, she turns and flees the battlefield. Ellana exhales out a brief sigh of relief before she turns to leave as well.

But then, she stumbles into one last inactivated trap. The magic bursts around her in a corona of terrible, _horrible_ heat, and it sears into her thighs, almost melting the ironbark around them. Then, frost anchors her to the ground as the last remaining mages start advancing towards her. In the darkness, her vision is just good enough to see their mouths moving in silent words, silent chants, and Ellana laughs bitterly. Are they chanting some sort of ritual spell, or is it part of the Chant of Light? Is she to die to the sound to their accursed god?

Ellana braces herself before she tears her way out of the trap. It takes too much energy out of her, and she almost falls to the ground. A templar is right in her path, and although she lurches to the side, it’s not quick enough. He deals a blow to her left arm, smashing through the ironbark and leaving a deep wound running down the length of her arm. He reaches back and _stabs_ , and Ellana barely moves in time to avoid having her hand chopped off. Her left arm is now functionally useless though, and her blood drips out of her body.

She bares her teeth at them all, and her vallaslin glows white-hot with the strength of the mana she musters up. It is the last spark of magic she can extract from her flesh and blood without crossing into blood magic, but it is enough to do one last act. Ellana calls down sheer fury and immolates them all with a mixture of fire and lightning and pure energy from the Fade that she snatches out with her ruined hand.

If this is to be her final act, then so be it. There will be no battle mage that escapes this place alive. Every single battle mage, every single templar, every single sycophant of the Chantry that _dared_ to step foot on her land will die in a sea of blood on this field. As the bodies fall, Ellana smiles and crumples to the ground.

The blood soaks into her armor. She does not know if it is hers or theirs, but no matter. They are dead, and the sounds of battle start to subside. Now, it is the aftermath, and the Chantry must re-evaluate what they sacrificed and compare it to what they won. Good. Ellana hopes that they lost more than what they won.

Let Divine Renata remember the price that she paid for her so-called Exalted March.

 

* * *

 

The Right Hand of the Divine looks out at the smoking wreckage of the battlefield and wonders if it was worth it. If it was worth it to bring in the mages, if it was worth it to break Chantry tradition, if it was worth to win this retreat.

Cassandra Pentaghast fully knows that the Dalish are masters of their craft. To play them with their own game was a gamble that seemed to pay off, but she looks over to the smoke and the fire and the remnant storm clouds hovering over the bodies of the dead and _wonders._ They may have retreated for now, but she knows that the fury of the Dales is nothing to underestimate, and this new tactic will have earned her even more ire.

How far do they have to go to win this war? How far will Divine Renata order this Exalted March?

Her troops are bleeding and burning. The chained lightning is nothing new, but tonight, it was more brutal than ever. It left searing burns that dug all the way down to the bone on her men. She can hear the raw screams of her soldiers as the medics try to salvage limbs with poultices, potions, and in worst cases, amputation. Cassandra stopped by the medic’s tent and saw that the number of wounded was less than previous battles. At first, that marginally lifts her spirits. But when she asks for a tally of the surviving and the dead, she finds that there’s a significantly higher number of casualties. None of the battle-mages survived the onslaught.

One note startles Cassandra. One body was torn wide open and almost completely drained of blood. There’s nothing else that it can be other than blood magic. She thought that it was a practice constrained to Tevinter alone. Blood magic was reviled everywhere else, especially by the Dalish who were once enslaved to the Tevinters as nothing more than stores of magical blood. If this was enough to push the Dalish to use blood magic… Cassandra shudders. Blood magic in the hands of the elves was a dangerous and certainly deadly practice. If they refined the practice as much as they did with their traditional style of magic, then they could infiltrate the minds of her troops and turn them against each other.

This was the issue of introducing new weapons and tactics to the battlefield. The thing about war was that it was a machine of constant evolution that pushed both sides to improve their weapons and tools of war over and over again. The winner would be the one who improved the most and the fastest. Cassandra suspects that the Dalish have years of knowledge and study behind them, and combined with their knowledge and repositories of old Arlathan, they could invent new ways to kill them all. Perhaps they wouldn’t stop at defending their borders. The eastern front was already dangerously close to losing Val Royeaux. Perhaps they would overrun the Orlesian Empire itself if they chose to turn to blood magic to fuel their side of the war.

Cassandra shudders at the thought and once again, she regrets letting the battle-mages into the war. One soldier’s report states that the mages only survived for the first quarter of the battle. After the Dalish realized what was going on, they retaliated with more force than they’ve ever seen on the western front. This alarms Cassandra for several reasons.

The first is that the fact that they realized so quickly and adapted to eliminate the mages within such a short span of time. That requires quick communication and mobilization, so they must have improved their methods of communication. Cassandra remembers hearing the sound of a horn during battle, but she doesn't understand how that sound alone managed to rally the Dalish to an entirely different formation. Perhaps they have a chain of messages within their ranks? Scouts that dodge through battle to carry the message? Cassandra doesn't know.

The second is that the Dalish retaliated with _more_ force than they’ve ever seen. This means that the Dalish were fully capable of obliterating their forces before. Cassandra doesn’t know what the Dalish are biding their time for. Perhaps they’re playing this like a siege and waiting until their forces are so battered down from losses of morale, supplies, and men. Cassandra wonders if this is an act of mercy, but then, she wonders if the Dalish are even capable of such things. They have to be, right? There are certain moral tenets that cross over races and religions, and mercy has to be one of them.

Cassandra exhales heavily as she stares down at her stack of reports. Another tragic thing about war is how it eroded away at moral codes and laws so easily. Devastation and violence had a way of turning morals on their heads and twisting them into unrecognizable things. Mercy was nothing compared to fury and vengeance. Cassandra can see the same thing happening to her men.

She can only pray that it doesn’t happen to her as well.

 

* * *

 

Ellana swears in low, guttural tones as she tries to drag herself across the fields without making too much sound. The wounds and the arrows still lodged in her arms keep her from moving faster, and her legs still feel too numb from whatever magic the _shemlen_ devised this time.

Hypocritical _shemlen._ She doesn’t understand why they preach against magic and cage their mages in Circles while they welcome mages in their wars. In both the Second Blight and in this Exalted March, there have been mages on the battlefields, firing spells across the lines with as much brute force as they can. Ellana wonders if they even comprehend the concept of subtle magic but winces with pain when she moves her legs too fast. Her left arm throbs with burning pain, and the wound in the center of her left palm blooms like a star. She should have _known._ But she didn’t, and now, she’s paying the price. Ellana grits her teeth and flattens her body against the tall, waving grass. The drums of war still beat on in the distance, and she is not safe yet.

When Ellana of Clan Lavellan was ten winters old, she saw her first bloodshed along the edges of their borders. When she was twenty winters old, she was sent to the Chantry to negotiate with the _shemlen_ and their Divine as part of the retinue from the Temples. She was optimistic, hopeful, and utterly naive. Now that she has lived thirty winters worth of life, Ellana realizes that there is little to stand in the inexorable greed of the Chantry. They worship their fires, and likewise, the flames of their insatiable hunger rise up and consume everything in their path.

Ellana first accepted the mantle of High Commander because she intended to bring the winter to the Chantry to silence their fire. Frost and lightning were both at her fingertips in the first few fledgling days of the Exalted March, and she was ready to choke the Chantry forces out. Now, Ellana looks at her body and wonders if she'll make it back alive. She's comforted by the fact that her sacrifice enabled her troops to retreat. Besides, if she dies, then she'll join her mother and father. Death would be preferable than being captured by one of the _shemlen_ and tortured until her breath gives out.

She staggers through the fields, trying to avoid the distant light of the human camps in the same fields. Finally. Ellana collapses by a large outcropping of rock and clutches healing magic to her wounds. She doesn’t have enough energy to sustain it, so the brief moment of relief is immediately cracked open to reveal the heaving, throbbing pain underneath.

She leans against the cool stone and begs Falon’Din to take her before a human does. With that final though, she allows herself to collapse and sink deep, deep under into cool, black unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

Cassandra surveys the battlefield. They lost too many good soldiers during this battle and many good mages as well. The Dalish are nothing if not skilled in the arts of war and magic, and Cassandra has lost too many to their skills.

She’s the only one left on this battlefield now that’s still standing. The rest of her men have already retreated back to their own tents to nurse their wounds and grieve the dead. But Cassandra refuses to go back until she honors every last body left on the field. The Pentaghast family always had strange notions about death, but this is a tradition that goes beyond just the Pentaghasts. It is simply respect for the ones that have fallen, for the ones who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of others, for the ones who are now by the Maker’s side.

She does not fear any sneak attack. Both the Dalish and the Chantry have flown their red flags to signal an end of fighting for the night. So, she goes through each body, closes their eyes, and says a soft prayer.

After a while, she can feel the familiar ache in her back, so she spies a large outcropping of rock in the near distance. Cassandra heads over to the rocks and settles down against the rock. She tips her head up to gaze at the setting sun, and she watches the different colors bleed into the clouds. Brilliant red, orange, and lavender all streak across the blue skies, signaling a start to the impending night.

Normally, Cassandra enjoys watching the sunset. But today, the red that bleeds out from the sun reminds her too much of the women and men she’s lost today. So, she casts her gaze to the side.

That’s how she finds the barely breathing body of an elf, curled up against the rocks. Her eyes are closed, and she seems unconscious. There are dark tattoos across her face that look like tree branches and highlight her cheekbones, and her hair is equally dark if not darker. But the thing that draws Cassandra’s attention the most are the arrows stuck in the elf’s shoulders and the magical burns and frostbite streaking up and down her armored legs. There’s a small pool of blood leaking from her limp arm as well. Cassandra doesn’t know how deep the magic affected the elf’s limbs, but judging from her state, Cassandra doesn’t think it’s good.

The best thing to do in this scenario would be to just leave the elf alone or to give her a mercy killing. Cassandra doesn’t think that anyone would survive the damage this elf seems to have taken. She’s tempted to take her sword out and deliver the final blow, but she thinks about her previous thoughts outside the medic’s tent. Mercy. Such a fragile, rare thing in the face of war. She does not want the Exalted March to change who she is.

That’s why she gingerly rolls over the elf and checks for any additional damage. Cassandra places the elf’s head on her lap while she probes the elf’s wounds. She has a few spare poultices left in her pouch, so she throws all caution to the wind and pulls them out. It might have been the pungent scent of elfroot or her touch, but suddenly, the elf stirs. Her eyes flicker open, and Cassandra sees the elf’s pupils constrict when she sees Cassandra.

She scrabbles away from Cassandra, but it isn’t much considering her weakness. She latches onto one spur of rock and snarls something in elvhen. Cassandra doesn’t know how to respond so she holds up the poultice and points at the elf’s wounds.

The elf stares her down and warily asks in Common, “Who are you, and what are you doing?”

“I’m offering you a poultice,” Cassandra says. She extends her hand out and shakes the poultice at the elf. “Take it and use it before you bleed out.”

“Do not take me for a fool,” the elf spits. “Considering your kind’s history, I would expect it to be poison. Go on. Kill me. I dare you.”

Cassandra can’t blame her suspicions. If Cassandra woke up to see an elf offering her a poultice, she wouldn’t take it either. But something in her soul makes her want to stay and offer some help. Both sides have lost enough. This is a kindness that she can spare.

“Well, I don’t know how to convince you that it isn’t,” Cassandra says. She considers the poultice for a while. Elfroot is edible, right? She shrugs and takes a bite out of it. Almost immediately, she gags on the sharp medicinal taste of it, but she manages to swallow it down. She coughs a little bit but holds up the poultice. “See? Safe,” she says. “Tastes terrible though. I think that’s a reason why they make us apply it only to the skin instead of eating it.”

The elf gapes at her, but suddenly, she bursts into a light peal of laughter. It is soft and almost angelic, but the motion makes her double over and retch. “Very well,” she chokes out. “I will take it. If this kills me, then I will know who to blame. If I die, I take you with me.”

She starts peeling off her armor. First, her breastplate. Then, she grasps the arrow shafts and grits her teeth before she pulls them out. She cries out with pain, but then, she bites her lip to keep from making too much noise. As she undresses, she turns halfway towards the rock to stop herself from exposing her breasts to Cassandra.

She struggles with her undershirt because her shoulders are now profusely bleeding. “Do you need help with that?” Cassandra asks.

The elf pauses before she reluctantly says, “Perhaps.”

Cassandra moves over and helps the elf undress. As she pulls up the undershirt, Cassandra spies dark branches inscribed on her back as well. Cassandra tries to avoid looking at too much of the elf’s body as she strips the pieces of armor off her other limbs, but the dark movement of lines stretching across the elf’s skin draws her attention. The elf keeps her back to Cassandra — a dangerous prospect — but her sword is by her side, perfectly aligned and parallel to her body. Cassandra saw the branches lined over the elf’s cheekbones, but now, she sees that those branches are mimicked on her back.

The base — the root, the stem, the very bottom of the branch — begins at the center of her back, right above her shoulder blades. But then, the branches on either side flare out, covering the entirety of her shoulder blades in intricate detail. If anything, they look like wings but with wood and branch and ink and skin.

Cassandra silently helps the elf pack on the poultices on her shoulders. She pauses and considers the elf before she passes her the last healing potion. The elf uncorks the bottle and sniffs it once, twice. Her ears flick back, and she cranes her head back to study Cassandra’s face. Cassandra only shrugs and asks, “Do you want me to take a sip of that as well?”

The elf looks at Cassandra for a long time before she passes the uncorked bottle back to Cassandra. It almost makes Cassandra snort with laughter, but she takes a sip from the bottle. “Tastes a lot better than the poultice if that’s what you’re wondering,” she says.

The elf chuckles, “I should hope so.” With that, she downs the potion. She sighs with relief and leans her forehead against the rock. “So,” she says. “What made you stop and decide to help me, human? Your kind has very little patience or tolerance for my kind.”

“I could say the same for your people as well,” Cassandra says. “Well, I think I should introduce myself. My name is Cassandra.”

The elf slowly glances back, and her dark eyes narrow on Cassandra’s face. She bites her lower lip before she says, “I am Ellana of Clan Lavellan.”

The name sounds similar to Cassandra, and she furrows her brow as she considers the name. “Aren’t you…” she trails off.

“I could ask the same of you. There are very few people in your armies that bear the same name as you,” Ellana says.

There is only one Ellana of Clan Lavellan that Cassandra knows, and it is High Commander Ellana of Clan Lavellan, one of the nine Scions of the Dales. They were the most elite soldiers out of the Emerald Knights and the de facto leaders of the nation aside from the council of Keepers from the clans. Cassandra was there when Divine Renata received a retinue from the Dales for a peace agreement. The peace agreement fell through, but Cassandra remembers the name, Lavellan. She doesn’t know much about the Dales and how they govern, but she knows enough to know that this Ellana is far more important than Cassandra ever could have expected.

But why is she _here_ and not safely in her own camp? What happened to injure her so? Cassandra winces with the sudden thought. She knows the answer. She glances back at the distant campfire. There are no mage survivors from the recent battle. Although they were successful with their traps, not a single mage survived the onslaught.

“What brings the Right Hand of the Divine to the remnants of a battlefield?” Ellana asks.

“I could ask the same from a Scion of the Dales,” Cassandra counters. She’s here to capture Adahlennar on orders from the Divine herself, but she doesn’t dare say that. Likewise, High Commander Lavellan is likely here to guard Adahlennar from the Chantry forces. But this is a topic that they dance around.

Ellana shrugs but immediately grimaces with pain. “I prefer being called High Commander or just Commander,” she says. “Calling me a Scion adds an element of worship that I dislike. I am Ellana of Clan Lavellan, nothing more and nothing less, and I do not claim to be any more than that.”

“I’ll call you Ellana if you just call me Cassandra then,” Cassandra says. “I’m not a fan of etiquette and niceties and titles either.”

“Excellent,” Ellana wryly says. “Wonderful. So, what do you intend to do now? Take me hostage? Torture me for information?”

Cassandra knows that would be the smart decision to make. But today, she is weary of war and bloodshed. So, she shakes her head. “No, I was just planning to leave you alone with the poultices and call it a day,” she says honestly.

Ellana examines Cassandra’s face before she relents and turns fully towards Cassandra. Cassandra immediately shields her eyes to stop herself from seeing Ellana’s breasts. That makes Ellana bark out a sharp laugh. “Oh, does the Right Hand of the Divine not enjoy seeing breasts?”

“I don’t _mind_ breasts,” Cassandra bites out as she keeps her eyes covered. “I just believe in propriety. I do _not_ believe in indecent exposure.”

“Ah, so you do like breasts,” Ellana hums.

Cassandra lets out an indignant squawk and instinctively places her hands on her hips. However, that means she doesn’t have her eyes covered any more, so she gets a full glimpse of Ellana and the smug smirk on her face. Ellana winks at her and says, “Do not worry; I like them too.” She dissolves into a series of soft giggles, and Cassandra groans.

Cassandra gets up and brushes the bits of grass off her armor. “I’m going to go back to camp now,” she says, firmly avoiding Ellana’s gaze. She stares at the dying sunset instead as she says, “Will I see you again?”

“Quite frankly,” Ellana says quietly. “I do not think that I would be able to move. Are you returning to your camp?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” Ellana sighs. “I will not stop you. Farewell, Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast.”

“Wh—” Cassandra sputters. “Why do you know my full name? You know what? I don’t want to know. I’ll try and keep my men from coming too close to this rock. You stay safe and get back to your people when you can, alright?”

“Alright,” Ellana says. A ghost of a smile wanders over her face, and Cassandra suddenly wonders what the real, genuine version of that smile would look like. Ellana dips her head into a bow or at least, as much as her wounded body allows. “Then, I suppose this means goodbye forever. I hope I do not meet you on the battlefield," Ellana tells her.

“And the same to you as well,” Cassandra murmurs.

With that, she takes her leave and picks her way across the battlefield. By the time she arrives at camp, the sun has fully set. Night weaves its way over the skies, and Cassandra waves off her men when they ask her where she’s been. “Honoring the dead requires time,” she says. Thankfully, people chalk it up to her family’s eccentricities regarding the dead. Cassandra’s never been more thankful for Uncle Vestalus’s strange customs for the dead.

But she can’t get High Commander Ellana of the Dales out of her mind. Somehow, that elf seemed more human than Cassandra’s ever perceived despite the sharpness of Ellana’s ears and the branches inked on Ellana’s skin. It is a thought that she out of all people shouldn’t have. She is the Right Hand of the Divine, orchestrating this Exalted March on behalf of Divine Renata. She shouldn’t be thinking like this.

But she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've had this idea about an exalted march au bouncing around in my head, and i put the few snippets from my rough drafts in my fic, [ephemerality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17495342), which is essentially a catch-all for all of my au ideas. you might recognize a few sections since i've reworked those snippets into the main fic. i haven't had as much time as i'd like to spend on writing, but i managed to get this bit done. i just rly love exploring elvhen culture and the possibilities for what the dales could have been like. hope you enjoyed it!


	2. Chapter 2

Ellana doesn’t like this feeling deep in her heart.

She’s taught herself to be bitter against the shemlen, but the poultices on her wounds and the aftertaste of the healing potion on her tongue is telling her something different. She _liked_ teasing the Right Hand of the Divine. She _liked_ talking with her.

She shivers against the cold night air and tries to summon up a few sparks of warmth. It’s hard, but she manages to press some warmth back into her skin. She barely has enough energy to heal her wounds together, but with Cassandra’s help, she thinks she could return to the Dales by the next day or so.

Her brother must be worried out of his mind. Well, Ellana thinks he knows that she’s fine. If she died, she knows her brother would’ve felt it. The blessings and the curses of being soul twins, she supposes. She could always call him up on her stone of farspeech, but Ellana can’t muster up the magic to activate it.

Ellana leans against the rock and slowly starts putting on her clothes and armor again. With each piece of ironbark she laces back on her body, she tries to put her own defenses up again. She still remembers the day a message was sent back from Val Royeaux. It was not a response from the Divine as the Scions expected. Not even the courtesy of a simple refusal. No, it was a message from one of Mahanon’s agents reporting that their letters had been burned and that their ambassador had been tortured. Ellana’s hands ball into angry fists when she thinks about it. That ambassador had been from Ellana’s jurisdiction: one marked with the branches of Mythal.

She doesn’t want to be twenty winters old and naively optimistic again. She knows how it’ll all pan out. But this infuriating spark of hope refuses to die down. That is how Ellana falls asleep under the stars: with a heart that drums out a flicker beat of hope.

When she wakes up the next day, she wakes up to the scent of smoke and the sound of sizzling meat. Ellana tries to get up, but she hears Cassandra click her tongue disapprovingly. “Just lie down,” Cassandra instructs. “I’m making breakfast. Don’t panic. No one knows you’re here.”

Ellana refuses to listen as she tries to haul herself up to a sitting position. She winces as she feels her thin scabs tear open once more, and she presses some healing magic to her wounds. It’s not enough though. Ellana burned almost all of her magical reserves out in the last battle, and the healing magic is barely enough to patch her scabs back together.

“I told you so,” Cassandra grumbles. “Stubborn elf, aren’t you.”

Ellana surveys the small camp Cassandra has set up. The fire she has going is so laughably small that Ellana doesn’t even think it should legally be called a campfire. It’s more of a small flame if anything. Cassandra has a small cast-iron pan with sausage frying in the bit of oil over the flame. Beside Cassandra, there’s a small flask and a number of healing potions and poultices.

“Why did you come back?” Ellana asks.

“Not even a thank you before you start with the questions,” Cassandra chuckles. “No worries, I would’ve asked the same thing. Frankly, I have no idea.”

“You could have left me alone,” Ellana says.

Cassandra pauses and looks up from the pan. “Do you want me to leave?” she asks. “I can leave if you want me to.”

“That is alright,” Ellana hurries to say. “But are you supposed to be here?”

Cassandra flips the sausage with the point of her dagger before she says, “No, probably not. But I purposefully woke up before dawn to get here on time. If anyone questions me, I’ll just make up an excuse about dead bodies and Uncle Vestalus.”

“Uncle Vestalus?” Ellana echoes.

Cassandra makes a face and gestures towards the field beyond the large boulders. “My uncle had a habit of preserving the dead and making up intricate rituals to honor the fallen,” she says. “Actually, it’s more of a family habit than anything else. They call themselves the Mortalitasi, and it’s a trend that’s starting to spread from the part of the empire that used to be my home.” Cassandra shudders. “But my uncle was certainly the most fervent of them all. Now, almost all of the empire expects my family — including me — to be as… Dedicated to the dead as Uncle Vestalus was.”

“Oh,” Ellana says. Somehow, the thought of this woman hunching over a dead human’s body is so inexplicably funny. Combined with the sheer disgust in Cassandra’s voice, it’s simply too funny to _not_ laugh at. She holds her hand to her mouth, trying to stifle her giggles, but it doesn’t work.

“Stop laughing,” Cassandra grumbles. But she hides a smile of her own too.

Cassandra shuffles over to put the sausages on a plate and rambles, “I hope Lieutenant General Rutherford doesn’t notice that I borrowed his pan. I never bothered to bring my own utensils, but that man has a veritable kitchen in his chest. I wonder if the Alamarri or the Chantry sisters and missionaries stationed there have some sort of cooking culture or if the man just likes to cook for fun.”

Ellana furrows her brow with confusion, and when Cassandra notices, she muses, “I don’t know if I should tell you more.”

“I will tell you more about my friends if you tell me about yours,” Ellana offers. “An equal trade, I think.”

“Well then,” Cassandra says. “Lieutenant General Cullen Stanton Rutherford is… I don’t know how the man managed to make his way up the ranks so quickly, but he’s here now under my command. He was found as a babe in Alamarri territory and was raised in the newest monastery charted by the previous Divine. I have no idea how he manages to haul his things around everywhere, but he has a skillet, a pan, a spatula, and multiple plates in his trunk.” She shakes her head and says incredulously, “He’s not even an army cook. I don’t know _why_ he has all of these things. I suppose he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed them temporarily.”

Ellana cracks a smile and offers, “Well, my brother, Mahanon, once had a spa day in one of our army camps once. He harvested honey and milk from the nearby hives and halla herds to make facials for each and every Emerald Knight in that camp. Everything was fine until we heard the alert. Everyone hurried to leave the camp and get in their formation with the face masks still on.” Cassandra bursts out laughing, but Ellana winks and continues, “Thankfully, it was a false alarm. Some bear accidentally set off our alarms, but it was certainly a commotion. My brother is now banned from having spa days now. He was very upset about it.”

They chat over breakfast until the sun finally rises. The sky begins to pale in color, and the conversation wanes. Finally, Cassandra hesitantly asks, “Do you think our people could be like this? No war, no fights?”

Ellana considers the question before she says softly, “No. My people do not trust your people and for good reason. Even when one of my people fell in love with yours, it was not enough to bridge our differences, and we both paid in blood. It is how the Exalted March began, in fact.”

“What do you mean?” Cassandra asks.

Ellana arches an eyebrow and asks, “Do you not know?” When Cassandra shakes her head, Ellana exhales heavily and says, “Red Crossing.”

“That was your people’s doing,” Cassandra automatically says.

That stokes the fury in Ellana’s eyes, and she laughs coldly. In the light of the flickering flame, her dark eyes reflect the light flatly against Cassandra’s eyes. “Red Crossing,” she repeats. “Oh, there is so much more to it than what your people like to believe.” She spreads her hands wide and says, “Of course, I admit that we had some fault in it. But it was an entire misunderstanding. Tell me, do you know the story of Knight Elandrin?”

“No.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Cassandra bristles at that sentence and challenges, “Then what do I not know?”

“Knight Elandrin was someone who was foolish enough to fall in love,” Ellana says steadily. “We knew that one of our own fell in love with a human girl. He agreed to forsake the Dales, forsake our gods, forsake his people and his family for this girl. His sister, Siona, alerted us to this danger. Because even if his heart and his lover’s heart were pure, we knew that that your Chantry would take the opportunity to pry our secrets from his lips. That was a risk we could not take. So, Knight Siona led a party to retrieve Knight Elandrin. It was to be clean and simple, but the human girl thought Siona was her brother and ran towards her as she was crying out.”

“She did not—“ Cassandra breathes out.

Ellana cuts her off and says, “She did. Knight Siona is nothing if not quick. She bears Elgar’nan’s marks and trained under the Temple of the Sun. She learned the arts of vengeance and retribution well, and that art festered in her limbs when the humans killed her sister during a border patrol. Still, that did not teach her patience. That is where I admit our fault in the matter. Knight Siona shot her down, and that led to a bloodbath in that human village. Our knights fled, but we lost Knight Elandrin to a human mob who would not listen to any explanations.”

Cassandra stares at Ellana, eyes open wide, and Ellana bitterly shakes her head. “I along with the other Scions of the Dales sent letters and even an ambassador to explain the situation and to apologize for Knight Siona’s rash behavior,” she says. “But our informants reported back to say that our letters were burned without even being read. Our ambassador was captured and tortured before he finally killed himself rather than betray our nation.”

She spreads her hands wide and lets flame flicker over her hands. “Your people have been nursing an old hatred of my nation and my people whether it be from the recent Blight or the wealth of our lands. Yet, your people forget that your prophet gave us this land and called Shartan _brother._ Your people forget that we sent our people to help. Ameridan of Clan Ghilan and Telana of the Temple of Journeys went to your emperor and joined his Inquisition. Some members of our people renounced the Dales to join your Wardens. We remained neutral during the Second Blight, yes, but we did not remain passive. And now, your Divine leaps at the opportunity to spill elvhen blood across our soil and supposedly take back land that was promised to us.”

Cassandra folds her arms and remains silent. Ellana extinguishes the flame, having said what had festered in her own heart for so long. She is tired of this war, yes, but she will not deny the existence of this old anger. She is older now — thirty winters worth of time — and she is bitter. But she wants this small, _small,_ bit of hope to survive. She just doesn’t know how.

“Then what will it take?” Cassandra suddenly asks.

Ellana cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean?” she asks rather waspishly.

Cassandra’s voice remains even as she repeats, “What will it take? What will it take for us to bridge this gap? You and I, we could resolve our differences. Heal the wound, if you want a metaphor.”

“Your people are not so easy to change,” Ellana bites out.

“So are yours,” Cassandra counters. “But if we could get along well enough to help each other, tease each other, and ah, even dress down in front of each other, than could we not help our people work together? You are the High Commander of the Dales, a Scion of your people, while I am the Right Hand of the Divine.”

“I could be executed for treason if I tried,” Ellana says.

“And I could be executed _and_ excommunicated from the Chantry,” Cassandra says. “But if we do not try, then who will?”

Cassandra’s eyes are ever so bright as she speaks, and Ellana finds herself drawn to them. Illimitably so. Ellana sighs, wondering how this human managed to revive the old spark in her heart once more. She lifts her head up and gazes directly into Cassandra’s eyes as she says, “Then let us try together.”

 

* * *

 

“You are on your way to become the greatest fool in the history of the Dales.”

Ellana runs a hand through her tangled, dirty hair and exhales heavily. “You do not have to phrase it like that, dear brother of mine,” she mutters. She holds up her stone of farspeech closer to her ear and murmurs, “Do you not trust me?”

The stone holds a hole in the center of its flat surface, and along the rim, there are old elvhen characters engraved into the grey. Each High Commander has a stone to complete a matching set, but with Merrill’s help, Ellana altered hers to match her brother’s more closely. That way, they could have private conversations easier.

She can hear her brother pacing on the other end. “I trust you,” he sighs with exasperation. “But right now, you are not giving me many reasons to trust you. You are trapped in enemy territory, and you claim that you have the Right Hand of the Divine on your side. Do you know how that sounds?”

“Hopeful?” Ellana tries.

Mahanon hisses back, “Absolutely alarming. They will name you _harellan_ for this, Ellana.”

“Oh, lovely,” Ellana grumbles. “Do you think they will put up statues of me next to Fen’harel then? Perhaps we could have matching symbols and all that, and I will abandon my post as one of Mythal’s mark-bearers and become the very first bearer of the Wolf’s vallaslin. A High Commander for the Temple of Pride rather than the Temple of Scales, one god for another.” She pauses and taps her chin. “Do you think there even is a set of vallaslin for the Dread Wolf?”

“No!” Mahanon explodes. He exhales heavily and snaps, “This would all be so much easier if you just came home and resumed your job as usual. Carry on with the war instead of trying to get your outlandish idea to work. Why do you think the _shemlen_ will ever agree to a peace treaty? The Divine wants blood. _Our_ blood.”

“If I did that, then the war would carry on,” Ellana says. She gazes at the distant, flickering lights of the human campfires. “The war would carry on, and our people would continue to fight and die. Our borders would be soaked with blood, both human and elvhen, and we will reap nothing but bitterness and sorrow at the end of it. Perhaps we will win. Perhaps we will lose. No matter. The outcome will still be bitter and painful. Why was peace never an option? Why have we jumped towards this war without any sense of thought? Are we to be remembered as people without judgement, as people without thought, as people who willingly walked into a war and bled our nation dry?”

“Those are dangerous words,” Mahanon warns. “If the rest of the High Commanders heard you say that, you could be executed for treason.”

“Executed for wanting something better for our people,” Ellana corrects.

Mahanon falls silent, and in the space between his next reply, Ellana prods at her bandages. Her wounds are scabbing over, but they’re not entirely healed yet. Ellana doesn’t think she can run yet, but she could probably walk. Her left arm is still largely unusable which is problematic. She might be able to get herself out, but she wouldn’t be able to protect herself. She needs both hands for magic, for arcane gestures and symbols, for wielding a staff or a sword. Ellana supposes that she could wield her weapons with one hand if she had to, but her balance would be thrown off. That’s an advantage that Ellana doesn’t want to give to her enemies freely.

“Stay safe, sister,” Mahanon finally says. “I will try and bring up your idea to the rest of the Scions, but I do not think the idea will be received well.”

“Appeal to Lyna of Clan Mahariel first,” Ellana says wearily. “She helped us defend Merrill of Clan Sabrae when she was put on trial for her blood magic. She may be willing to help us again.”

“Do not worry,” Mahanon says. “I am not a fool.”

“Good,” Ellana says. She manages to choke out a small laugh that doesn’t hurt, and she adds, “At least between the two of us, one of us is not a fool.”

“That might change in the near future,” Mahanon sighs. “If this goes poorly, then I will join you in the records as the second greatest fool in the history of the Dales.”

 

* * *

 

Cassandra’s absences aren’t going unnoticed.

In fact, Lieutenant General Rutherford takes a particular concern in her. He pulls her aside and asks her if the war is taking a toll on her. When Cassandra asks why, there is a deep shadow that crosses over his face as he quietly tells her, “I have seen things from wars that leave their scars. They never quite leave you.”

Cassandra doesn’t press him more on his past. Who knows what he saw and experienced in Alamarri territory? She’s heard nasty rumors about the Korcari Wilds and the witches that live in their depths as well as stories about the Avvar who live up in the mountains and sing out spirits into the world. Certainly a terrifying world for anyone to grow up in. She pats his shoulder in what she hopes to be a comforting manner and says, “I am doing fine.” She tries to remember what her excuse was before she says, “I only hope that I am making Uncle Vestalus proud.”

Another one of her generals stops her in the night. It’s Raleigh Samson, a man that was taken in by the Chantry from the streets. He was initially denied entry into the troops, but his sheer force of will managed to get him through to the end. Cassandra thinks he looks the meanest out of all of her generals, but in all honesty, she thinks he’s one of the kindest people’s she’s ever met. Cassandra’s seen him help out the poor, the hungry, and even the mages that they had in their camp prior to the battle. For that, Cassandra values him, but that kindness is what trips her up.

“You haven’t been sleeping well,” he gruffly says. “Always wandering off towards the bodies. You can’t heal them back to life. your Grace. I know that not all of them are dead, but if they can’t make their way back to us, they’re just destined to die there. They’re in the hands of the Maker now.”

“I know,” Cassandra murmurs. “Just give me this though. It gives me a sense of closure.”

Samson eyes her before he comments lightly, “Never seen you do that before, but I guess there’s always a time to take up family tradition again. I’ll see you at the war meeting later then, your Grace.”

“Maker guide you,” Cassandra faintly says.

She also receives a raven from Leliana. The Left Hand has eyes everywhere, and it seems as though Cassandra cannot escape her ever-present gaze. The message is succinct but with a touch of humor. Just like Leliana herself.

_If you want embalming tools from the Mortalitasi, then I can requisition some for you. I’m afraid there aren’t any crypts to store bodies here though._

Cassandra crumples the parchment up and tosses it into a nearby campfire. On one hand, she resents being lumped in with the more eccentric members of her family, but on the other hand, she would prefer that over Leliana discovering Ellana. She twists her hands together nervously and tries to think of contingency plans if the worst comes to pass. Perhaps she could say that Ellana was a prisoner of war, but then, she might be taken out of Cassandra’s jurisdiction and brought directly to Divine Renata.

Cassandra shudders at the thought. Most Holy would… Cassandra knows that Renata can be kind, but Cassandra also knows that Renata has a will forged sharper and harder than the finest silverite. Renata would not hesitate to cut the Dales down in the name of the Maker and Andraste.

She shakes her head and turns to head towards the meeting. Some of her generals and commanders are by the campfire already, discussing tactics for their next attack. Cassandra looks through their notes and their maps and asks, “Lieutenant General Rutherford, are you sure you want to take that route?”

The man is so eager to cut his teeth on the warfront. Cassandra knows that more than anything, he wants to prove his mettle in the crucible of war, but this is not child’s play. Despite his training and his surprisingly quick ascendance up the ranks, Cassandra still considers him to be relatively fresh from the outskirts. Alamarri territory may be dangerous, but war is a dangerous game entirely different than anything that they’ve ever played before.

She settles her hands over the map and feels the texture of the rough paper. There are certain spots across the paper where the texture is rougher, and Cassandra knows that they’re all spots of dried blood. She glances up at Rutherford and nods for him to continue.

“We have troops stationed on the southern side while we’re on the west,” Rutherford says. “If we manage to get a scout to the other camp and mobilize our forces correctly, we can do a pincer maneuver and close in on the Dalish regiment stationed in this area.”

“Why can’t we just send a raven?” Cassandra asks.

Samson coughs and says, “With all due respect, ma’am, the Dalish have methods of shape-shifting and communicating with the animals. It would be easier for them to intercept a raven and get the message from it than it would be to get a message out of a scout’s mind. At least a scout can kill themselves before the Dalish torture the answer out of them. It’s hard enough for us to screen each and every raven that the Left Hand uses. I don’t think we can manage it with our current resources.”

“Do we have the men to spare?” Cassandra asks next. She looks around at everyone else and knows the answer before they even say it. No, they do not have enough men. This pincer maneuver is a desperate attempt at best. If it succeeds, then Cassandra will be grateful. But neither sections of their army have enough supplies or soldiers to survive another frontal assault like they did today.

Samson and Rutherford shake their heads. General Evangeline de Brassard clears her throat, and Cassandra turns her attention towards the woman. She passes the map over, and de Brassard taps her finger over the X Rutherford marked on the map. “The issue with the pincer movement is the level of communication that is required,” she says. “The Dalish know the land better than we do, and there’s no way that we can reliably get a message across without them finding out about it. We could retreat from this area and regroup with larger reinforcements. Disseminate the plan then and then execute it with enough men to make it work.”

“Then what was all this for?” Rutherford bursts out. “With all due respect, General de Brassard, if we retreat now, then what has all of this sacrifice been for?” He gestures out to the darkness beyond them where the bodies still lie, slowly rotting and bloating with death. “We lost too many men for us to retreat now.”

“So, would you rather have us attempt a nearly suicidal maneuver?” Evangeline bites out. “With all due respect, _Lieutenant General,_ I am not interested in sacrificing my men to a plan with such little chance in it. We took out nearly an entire regiment of the Dalish forces. I think that is a blow dealt well. We paid for their deaths with the deaths of our own, and that must be something that we must satisfy ourselves.”

The lieutenant general opens his mouth to speak, but Cassandra cuts them both off by clearing her throat. “Thank you for your feedback,” she says in a stony voice. “I will consider both of your options during the night, and we shall reconvene tomorrow morning to discuss our final course of action. You are all dismissed.”

Cassandra turns to face the night sky. Her back is to the fire and the rest of the camp, and her eyes are trained on the starry night. Even though the darkness coats everything in thick shadow and even though her eyes don’t pierce the dark as well as elven eyes do, Cassandra fancies that she can see the large outcropping of rock where Ellana hides.

She hopes with all her heart that Ellana is safe.

 

* * *

 

Ellana once knew Elandrin before all of this — this blasted, blazing war that licks up against their borders — and Ellana once knew Elandrin to be kind.

He and his sister were polar opposites. Day to night, ice to fire, equal and opposite reactions that balanced the grand scale between them. Ellana could never understand that because her own brother was alike as she was alike. Rather than being opposites, Ellana used to think that siblings were more like branches from the same root. Elandrin and Siona were not so though.

Elandrin was older than her by several winters, so when Ellana asked him about his sister, he only laughed and ruffled her hair. His face was newly marked and reddened with Sylaise’s vallaslin while Ellana’s skin was still child-bare and empty. “You’ll understand one day,” he told her. “Siona and I get along perfectly fine.”

“No, you don’t,” Ellana remembers telling Elandrin. “You and Siona fight _all_ the time.”

Elandrin laughed again, and Ellana remembers the _kindness_ in his face when he said, “Siona and I may have our differences, but in the end, we are blood-bound and we are family. Nothing will ever shake that, _da’ean._ Your brother is the same to you, and my sister is the same to me.” 

“Stop calling me that. I’m not a little bird anymore,” Ellana remembers complaining. But she also remembers relenting and running off to play some other game with her brother and her other friends.

But Elandrin was wrong. Siona was the one to shoot the arrow that pierced through her brother’s heart, and although tears stained her cheeks that day, the marks of Elgar’nan blazed bolder on her skin. For all his words, Elandrin broke his blood bonds and tore free from the roots of his clan and burned himself off the tree of the Dalish.

For a human woman.

Ellana cannot understand it. She cannot understand the depth of the love that was enough to drive Elandrin from the Emerald Knights and the Dales. She cannot understand _why_ that was enough for Elandrin to spark a raging war along the dry kindling of their borders.

But when she looks over at the Right Hand of the Divine, she wonders if she is following Elandrin’s path again. She is no longer a child, no longer a simple knight. She is one of the High Commanders of the Dales. She has too much to lose and exceptionally little to gain except for a flickering spark of hope and the fluttering tremors of a feeling that she dares not name in her heart.

Ellana thinks that Elandrin would name this feeling _love._

Ellana wonders if Mahanon will be the Siona in her story. If the marks of Dirthamen will stain his cheeks deeper than tears or blood. If she will be the final fire to collapse the entirety of the Dales. She’s shaken out of her thoughts when Cassandra finishes grinding down the newest poultice. Without a word, Cassandra rises to apply the poultices and rebind the wounds on Ellana’s body with a careful touch.

Ellana sighs and leans in closer to Cassandra’s touch and prays to Mythal for guidance.

_Let this be something more than what Elandrin was. Let this survive, All-Mother. Please._

 

* * *

 

 Cassandra can’t find the time to visit Ellana again, but she’s not too worried. She hasn’t heard a single word from a scout about her presence, and she made sure to leave a few supplies with Ellana. But when Cassandra wakes the next morning, she finds the Left Hand of the Divine in her camp.

Leliana gives her a small wave and a small smile, and Cassandra has to force a stiff smile up. Leliana narrows her eyes and asks, “Is everything good? I would have thought you’d be happier to see me, Cassandra.”

“I would, Leliana, I would,” Cassandra says as she shakes her head. “You were simply… Unexpected.”

“As I strive to be,” Leliana chuckles. She beckons Cassandra over and says, “Walk with me. We have business to discuss.”

Ah. So, she wants to parley. Divine’s business, from one Hand to another. Cassandra follows after Leliana without another word of protest, and instead, she asks in hushed whispers, “What is it now?”

“Divine Renata is pleased with the performance of the mages,” Leliana tells her. Her words are barely audible, but Cassandra is practiced in the arts of listening to Leliana now. The Left Hand spares little sound when the business calls for it. But today, Leliana’s expression is stormy as she continues, “The Divine wishes to amplify the role of the battle-mages and send them to the frontlines. Bring down Adahlennar for their archives, penetrate the Emerald Graves and take Suledin’s Cradle to break their morale, and burn Halamshiral to the ground. Most of their forces are focused on the western front, and the Divine seems to think that we can make it through to the other side with the help of reinforcements from the newly founded Chantries in Alamarri territory.” Leliana casts her gaze aside and grumbles, “Never mind the fact that those Chantries are so new that they can barely hold themselves together against the remaining Alamarri, Avvar, and Chasind who do not agree with our views.”

“Not a single mage survived this first battle,” Cassandra says while she gapes at Leliana. “How does she expect the others to survive as well?”

“The report did not faze her,” Leliana says wearily. She folds her arms and clenches her gloved hands into fists. “Divine Renata is willing to pay as many lives as it takes to make this Exalted March succeed. I don’t even think she considers them to be fully human, and you already know her attitudes on elves.”

Yes, Cassandra knows. She was there when the Divine decreed the formation of alienages. She had to stand and watch as the Divine struck the first blow with a small chisel against a statue of Shartan. His ears were docked, and other murals, paintings, and carvings of elves in Orlais were destroyed. The only surviving piece of art was a copy of a mural that Leliana smuggled to the University of Orlais in a fit of fury.

“The elves are on the verge of taking Montsimmard to the west,” Leliana sighs out. “And once they take Lake Celestine, Val Royeaux will not be far. I should not be the one to say this, but I think that the Divine is terrified.” Her eyes spark with terrible rage, and still, in her quiet whisper of a voice, she snarls out, “Is this the kind of glory that this age was meant to be? We just survived the Second Blight, but a decade later, we have forgotten everything that we have already lost. Divine Renata is destroying everything that we have worked so hard to rebuild.”

Cassandra watches Leliana’s eyes glitter in the morning light, and she thinks that there are tears deep inside that Leliana is holding back with an iron grip. Sometimes, she forgets that Leliana was a veteran of the Second Blight. Technically, they were all survivors of those hellish decades, but Leliana was there at the final battle of Starkhaven. Leliana had to watch her friends die and fall against the claws of the Archdemon.

Cassandra glances up at Leliana, and before the fury can cool into something harder than silverite on Leliana’s face, Cassandra asks, “What if we could stop the war?”

“What do you mean?” Leliana asks warily.

Cassandra clears her throat and then clarifies, “What if we could broker some sort of peace treaty and end this Exalted March?”

“Are you asking me if I want to go against the _Divine?”_ Leliana asks. Her tone is incredulous but still torture-soft. “The very same Divine who told us all that we ‘trade our honor as if it were the cheapest of currency,’ the very same Divine who told us that we had no integrity, the same Divine who destroyed the city elves of Orlais for a petty argument across the Waking Sea?” Leliana laughs bitterly. “A good attempt at a jest, Cassandra. But it would never happen. Do you remember the few times the Dales sent diplomats to the halls of Val Royeaux? We murdered one of them and sent the rest back to the Dales with little more than the clothes on their backs. We did the same with the last ambassador they sent as well.”

Cassandra remembers that incident. Divine Renata ordered the Knight-Commander to call down a divine smite on the lead diplomat for her insolence, and then, the Knight-Commander went too far. He slashed his sword out too far while calling down the divine light and then cut deep into the woman’s chest. None of the other Dalish elves could muster up their magic after that smite, and none of them had weapons as a sign of faith. Cassandra does not remember the last incident. By that point, she was already traveling down the path to the Dalish border, ready to start an Exalted March, but the fact remains steady and true. Divine Renata has no patience nor any mercy for the Dalish.

Leliana exhales slowly, but now, Cassandra sees a glimmer of interest streaking across Leliana’s face. The Left Hand might be a Hand of the Divine, but Leliana has never settled for anything less than her own will in the end. They are not weapons to be pointed and used. They should be more beyond their roles, and Cassandra feels the ache of the duty on her shoulders. She thinks Leliana has been chafing against the weight of it for far longer though. Leliana never could tolerate the Divine’s policies in regards to the elves and mages.

“Thank you for the idea,” Leliana finally says. She pulls out a pad of paper and jots something down in code with a broken piece of graphite. A small smile curls her lips up, and she snorts, “To think that the Hands are the ones to do such things.”

“The hands do what the body cannot,” Cassandra recites. It’s one of Divine Renata’s favorite phrases to use whenever she sends them out on new missions and new objectives.

Leliana laughs louder than she ever has during this entire exchange, but she hushes herself enough to say, “Truly, it must be so. I will try to see what information I can glean, any connections I can make to let this _idea_ unfurl. We need an end to this bloodshed. Badly.”

Cassandra holds her breath. Exhales. Shuts her eyes. Then, in the quietest tone she can summon up, she asks, “What if I told you I had a connection already?”


	3. Chapter 3

Ellana counts her wounds again.

Her legs are coated with burns from the traps. The first initial pain from them was the worst — fire licking up her legs faster than the whisper-winds of the training grounds in Tirera’vun — but the pain died out as the fire consumed her flesh. She thinks of Tirera’vun as she stares at the leathery skin growing over the charred, waxy edges of her burns. _The edge of the sleeping sun,_ the city was named, and aptly so. The nights always seemed darker there, and when the sun set, it set with such a finality that shrouded the land in a cloak worthy of the gods. There, Ellana remembers learning the ways of the bow and the knife and the sword before she left to join the Emerald Knights. She bends her head and counts the burns — _sa, ta, tan, ny, va, no, noa, han, uan_ — and finds nine in total. A short laugh escapes her lips; nine for the gods, she supposes.

She runs a finger down her legs and shudders from the pain. Good. Pain means that her flesh is becoming her own again, that the nerves are regrowing and that the bone and blood are knitting themselves back together. _Good,_ she reminds herself as she prods her burns. She winces and tells herself again, _good._ She lets a wave of healing magic wash over her legs and watches as the skin slowly inches back towards each other again.

Next, she moves onto the others. An arrow wound in her shoulder is now fully healed, and she can move her right arm more freely. There is another arrow wound in her right forearm that is now gone. The scars remain, and Ellana does not have the magic to waste on erasing them. Fine. Let them remain. Let them become a reminder for her as she moves onward in her years.

Ellana’s grateful that her abdominal wounds are light and surface-level. If her internal organs were damaged, then she would have virtually no chance of surviving. Wounds like that required far more magic than she had in her current reserves.

But the worst is still yet to come. Ellana grits her teeth as she peels back the bandages on her left arm. The templar’s blade left a deep gash in her arm, rendering it unusable. Ellana breathes magic into the wound to try and nudge the bone back to its right place. There were too many fractures in the shattered bone for her to heal at once, but now that she’s had the luxury of time, she’s managed to get most of them into place.

Besides the bone, there is the issue of flesh. Ellana searches for the right container among the few Cassandra left her, and she unstoppers the bottle with her teeth. Then, she holds her breath as she pours it over the wound. The sensation is always unexpectedly unique. The potion floods the wound and sanitizes it once more, but the shocking coolness of it pierces through Ellana’s senses and sends a silent scream rattling through Ellana. She has to bite down on her chapped lips to keep the sound from escaping, but her vocal cords tense with the held-back scream. She packs another poultice on and inhales the tang of elfroot before she winds new bandages around her left arm and hand.

She suspects that the deepest wound — right in the center of her left palm — will remain even after magic. Some marks are indelible, and this may be one of them.

Ellana then dreams of home. Of aravels with sails that bloom in the winds that caress the fields and the hills with loving attention. Of cities, vast and intricate, sung into the world with magic leftover from a generation and a civilization long gone. Of Tirera’vun and the silent nights, of Halamshiral and the songs of the choirs, of Adahlennar and tomes upon tomes of ancient history recorded down with care. She opens her eyes and gazes at the sky, wishing she was home.

Ellana bends her head and stares at the grasses. Instead, she is here at the edge of the Dirthavaren. Her people once named this place _exalted_ because they believed the gods touched this place and made it a sacred home for them. Now, it is being exalted in a far different manner than her ancestors once expected. Ellana lets out a shuddering breath and turns her thoughts back to the Exalted March. This is what she promised to defend, and she chose it gladly. But now, she tries to search for some way to end the madness of war.

She knows she has a few allies to rely on in her endeavour. First and foremost, her brother. As a fellow High Commander, her brother is likely one of her most loyal and powerful allies, but her brother alone will not be enough. She suspects that her grandmother, Keeper Deshanna, and her clan will back her if she ever made a public announcement about it, but Clan Lavellan is only one clan among many. She thinks that Lyna of Clan Mahariel would help. Lyna is slow to act, but when she does, she makes the very earth shake with what she does. Ellana would be grateful to have her on her side, and if she gets Lyna, then she gets Tamlen of Clan Sabrae and both clans. Merrill would undoubtedly support a peace treaty, but the pitiful truth is that Merrill is simply one step too close to being _harellan_ for Ellana to rely on her alone.

Well, Ellana supposes that she is also one step close to the mantle of _harellan,_ but that is an insignificant detail to her right now.

A rustle behind her makes Ellana’s ears prick up, and she flattens herself against the rock. Her fingers stray towards the hilt of her blade by her belt, and she readies the few strands of magic she has left against her left hand. Strangely, the magic pools in the wound of her palm instead of her fingertips like they normally did, but she clenches the magic tightly.

“Ellana?” Cassandra’s voice carefully whispers.

Ellana exhales with relief and pushes away from the rock. She totters to her feet and smiles to herself. She hopes that this will be a pleasant surprise for Cassandra, and she stumbles to the side of the rock. “Cassandra—” she begins to say.

There are two figures instead of one, and the second has a deep purple cowl over her head and inscribed armor. Her gloves are marked over and over again with ravens’ talons, and when she looks up, Ellana glimpses strands of scarlet hair and bright eyes that flash just like a nightingale’s. Ellana freezes in place, and in spite of Cassandra’s delighted gasp, she snarls, _“Harellan.”_

The betrayal cuts deep, and although Ellana was expecting it sooner or later, it _hurts._ She draws her spirit blade, and although the blade isn’t as bright as it normally is at her full strength, Ellana knows that she can make it hurt. She sways on the balls of her feet, trying to stay balanced, and her left arm still hangs useless by her side, but she hisses, “Sister Nightingale.”

“High Commander Ellana,” the Left Hand of the Divine returns. “Good evening.”

Ellana shoots a glare at Cassandra and lowly says, “I trusted you.”

“No, it’s not what it looks like,” Cassandra hurries to say.

“Really now?” Ellana interrupts. She struggles to keep her balance, but she points over to Leliana and snaps, “You brought the Left Hand of the Divine with you.”

“For good reason,” Leliana says. She folds her arms and says, “Cassandra asked me if I would support an peaceful end to the Exalted March. I said yes, thinking that we Hands would be the only ones working towards this idea. But…” She glances over at Cassandra and carelessly gestures to the rock. “I was told that there were others with the same sentiments.”

“Correct,” Ellana says warily.

Cassandra approaches Ellana, and reluctantly, she lets Cassandra support her. Cassandra helps her walk over to her former position and murmurs, “I’m so happy that you’ve healed enough to walk, and I’m sorry for bringing Leliana without asking you first. She’s going to leave the next morning, and I wanted to have you two talk before she left.”

“A dangerous gamble,” Ellana grumbles. “But I suppose we are all making dangerous gambles nowadays. Very well.” She slowly resumes sitting and eases her legs underneath her again.

“Sister Nightingale,” she sighs. “Let us parley.”

 

* * *

 

Cassandra leans against the rock and thinks that Ellana is skilled at this. She speaks with clarity and outlines terms and details of peace with a surprising ease. Ellana doesn’t have any pen or paper, but she uses her hands to motion out what she says.

“Peace for both the Dales and the Orlesian Empire,” Ellana says. “Both parties have grievances and misunderstandings. In order to establish a functional peace treaty, we must address them both. First and foremost, the catalyst of the war.” Ellana sobers and taps the branches tattooed on her face. “The Red Crossing incident. A clarification on that to set things straight. Then, we can move on to healing the wounds of the war between us both.”

“Red Crossing?” Leliana inquires. “Do explain.”

Ellana looks tired as she speaks, and her tone is slow and measured. “One of our Emerald Knights fell in love with a human girl. We came to retrieve him from the village of Red Crossing where he planned to run away with his lover,” she tells Leliana. “His sister, Siona, was the one specifically assigned to bring him back home. The human girl thought Siona was her brother and ran towards her while crying out. Siona believed that the girl intended to attack her and struck her down.”

Ellana curls her right hand into a tight fist and says, “I admit that Knight Siona was quick to act and quick to attack. However, the humans of that village refused to listen to our Knights’ explanations, and they murdered Elandrin. The news was not well received in the Dales, but even then, I — my temple, my clan, _we_ — tried to send one final ambassador.” Ellana sucks in a deep breath and tries to steady herself, but her voice shakes as she says, “But my apprentice was killed and sent back to the Dales in mutilated parts. The Exalted March had already begun.”

Cassandra sucks in a sharp gasp when she hears Ellana’s voice crack over the word, “apprentice.” She holds a hand to her mouth as if that would be enough to hold the sound back, but it’s too late. She slowly drops her hand to her side and whispers, “I did not know.”

Ellana gives Cassandra a weak smile. “My clan is a clan of diplomats,” she tells Cassandra. “In times of strife, my clan is the first to send scouts and diplomats to soothe the ache, to ease the hurt. Our clan’s founder, Lavellan, was one marked with the branches of Mythal and she bore the burdens of justice with equal measure. We honor her legacy with this tradition.”

So that’s why Ellana’s so skilled at this. Cassandra didn’t know that about her and her clan. But then, another thought fills her with growing horror. If Ellana was trained to be a diplomat, then was she ever there at one of the diplomatic meetings with Divine Renata? What if that final ambassador hadn’t been Ellana’s apprentice? What if that final ambassador was Ellana herself? The mental image of Ellana’s dismembered body sends a shudder through Cassandra’s chest, and she clenches her hands into fists. What a horrible thought. She thought it was horrible when she first heard of the news along the road to the Dales, but now, with Ellana in her mind, she finds it terrifying.

“Another issue my people have with yours is the lack of help from the Dales during the Second Blight,” Leliana points out. She doesn’t miss a single beat, and instead, she remains as cool and collected as she was when she arrived. Cassandra envies that about Leliana. Leliana leans forward and asks in deadly tones, “Where were your people during the Blight?”

Ellana eyes her carefully and says, “We, as a nation, were unable to send forces to the Blight. We are a nation divided into clans and then into temples. In order to send formal aid, we would have to gain the approval of every temple and then a majority of the clans. Some of us chose isolationism, a stance that I personally disagree with, but not all of us remained passive.” She pauses to list each clan off her right fingers. “Clan Mahariel, Clan Surana, and Clan Tabris had the most members that left the Dales to join the Wardens, but other clans like Clan Sabrae, Clan Alerion, and Clan Talas have elves who left to fight. Ameridan of Clan Ghilain left us to join your emperor’s Inquisition. None have returned, but all left and joined freely. Elvhen blood joined human and dwarven blood alike during the Second Blight, Sister Nightingale.”

“Very well then. Name me the benefits of a peace alliance and why I should commit an act of heresy to support it,” Leliana challenges.

With equal measure, Ellana says, “First, we would end this needless war. Less lives would be lost. Your people could return to their former lives and so could mine. Beyond that, a peace treaty means that we return to our various focuses. Your empire can expand northward and have the resources to handle influence from the Tevinter Imperium. My nation and my people have little interest in expanding our borders. Our temples are here, and we have built ourselves a legacy here. We do not need more human cities; we need time.”

Ellana waves a hand towards the human camp and says, “But also, a peace treaty is the first step towards an alliance, and an alliance between the Dales and the Orlesian Empire could mean a great deal. The Dales are an agricultural powerhouse. The Empire may be large, but it takes a longer time for fresh fruits and wines to be transported from a place like Antiva to Orlais. Consider the transportation time between the Dales and Orlais. Far shorter, yes? Our food and our products are also guaranteed to be fresher and safer because of our methods and ways.” A cheeky smile curls around the edge of Ellana’s lips as she says, “I hear that ice cream is a luxury in Orlais. What if I told you that was a common summertime treat in my country? It takes days to travel from Tirera’vun to Adahlennar, but the butchered meat remains as fresh as the day it was killed when it arrives. Consider that as you make up your mind.”

It’s compelling, and Cassandra can see why they would make Ellana a diplomat. She takes words and weaves them into an argument that is sound of logic and sound of heart. There’s also an earnest look to Ellana’s eyes that makes Cassandra truly believe that Ellana wants peace.

She looks over at Leliana and sees the thoughts churning behind the Left Hand’s eyes. Cassandra can only hope that the direction of Leliana’s mind is for the better.

Leliana laces her hands together and muses, “I suppose the Dales would like the Chantry out of their borders. No more missionaries, no more chantries, no more settlements and colonies so close to the border. Divine Renata will not be pleased with that. In fact, I dare say she might refuse on that ground alone.”

“Does your Divine not remember the promise that Andraste made to Shartan?” Ellana inquires.

Surprise flickers across Leliana’s face, and Ellana laughs. “Oh, do not give me that look, Sister Nightingale. I know enough about your religion, and I personally believe that it would be more heretical to break a promise made by your prophet than to forge a peace with another nation.”

“Silver-tongued, aren’t you,” Leliana says slowly.

Ellana flashes her another smile, but this one is all teeth. “You forget, Sister Nightingale, that I was to be a diplomat,” she says.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Leliana says lightly. “But your words are glib, High Commander, and your argument is compelling.” She stretches her limbs out before she tucks her hood more closely around her face. “The night is growing long, and I fear we must return before we arouse suspicions,” she says. “Good night, High Commander Ellana of Clan Lavellan.”

 _“On nydha,_ Left Hand of the Divine,” Ellana returns. She looks at Cassandra, and her expression softens. _“On nydha,_ Cassandra.”

“Good night, Ellana,” Cassandra whispers just before she follows after Leliana’s dark figure in the fleeting night.

 

* * *

 

Leliana returns to her tent, pensive and thoughtful.

She is the Left Hand of the Divine, and she goes where the Divine cannot. She is also more than that. Leliana is supposed to see where the Divine cannot, to penetrate through the cover of shadows and find secrets. All too often than not, Leliana finds herself paying blood in exchange. She worries that this may be another one.

Leliana doesn’t know if Cassandra remembers it well, but Leliana does. She was still new to the position of the Left Hand and was horrified at the scenario. When the Dales sent their final retinue of diplomats a decade ago, they sent two members from Clan Lavellan: the First and her daughter. Before Leliana and Cassandra could stop Most Holy, Divine Renata ordered a divine smite to teach the elves of their insolence. Leliana presses her lips together in a thin line as she remembers the way the Knight-Commander used the flat of his blade to direct the light. She also remembers the way the diplomat’s blood spattered across the blade.

Ellana hasn’t changed much in the span of the years. If anything, she looks weary, and her eyes don’t hold the same innocence as they used to. Leliana simply cannot understand how a woman with a mother dead by the Divine’s orders could possibly have the desire for _peace._ Now, with the recent revelation, Leliana wonders just how many of her people Ellana has lost. Her mother, her apprentice, and who else? Most people in that position would demand blood for blood and life for life. She specifically put in that note in the dossiers about the Lavellans. Frankly, Leliana considers Ellana of Clan Lavellan to be the one of the most dangerous one out of all the High Commanders of the Dales to meet because of that predicted grudge. And _yet,_ Cassandra was willing to believe that Ellana of Clan Lavellan was going to support a peace.

Leliana exhales out quietly and sits down on her bedroll. She doesn’t bother lighting a candle or a lantern and chooses to sit in the shadows instead. She almost chuckles when she thinks about the irony of it. The shadows were a fitting place for the Left Hand to remain.

She doesn’t believe Ellana, but at the same time, she does. A secret, hidden part of her suddenly sparks up with the brief hope, and she wants to crush down the utter naivety of that sentiment. She can’t deny it though. She wants peace more than anything, but peace by the hands of the elves and humans both seems like an impossible dream.

Leliana tugs off her gloves and laces her cold fingers together. Oh, when did she grow so cold? Not in the sense of the physical, but in the sense of the mind. Cold. Unyielding at best, ruthless at worst.

It’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but the answer lives underneath her skin, breathing and living and dying with every breath she takes. The answer lies in the memories that remain after the Blight, and although she still dreams about the midnight scales patterning the Archdemon, she knows that part of her was irrevocably lost during the Blight. Well, she revises that previous statement. She thinks that she’s found a fragment of her again. That innocent naivety that brought her from Orlais and that shattered at the hands of Marjolaine and in the streets of Starkhaven. It beats and thrives once more at the mere mention of an end to the Exalted March, at an end to the slaughter of the elves and the mages, at an end to the thing that drains the coffers of Orlais and the Chantry at a rate that rivals the Blight.

Leliana rubs her hands together, trying to pull back some of the warmth back, and she debates with herself for another moment more. It’s a strange predicament that she’s left with on her hands, and the predicament is that she has to decide between peace or no peace and with no guarantee of either. Leliana works at it, sends it through the cogs of her mind, and even tucks it im with her as she sleeps.

When she wakes the next morning, she decides. There is more to be lost, and Leliana has seen enough of her people die. She has been called betrayer and traitor before; she is not afraid of being called the same again.

Leliana chooses peace.

In the dim light of the morning, Leliana reaches for pen and paper. Once she has her letters written and her missives transcribed into ciphers, she rolls them all up before tying and sealing each one carefully. She leaves her tent and squints against the growing light of the dawn.

The camp also begins to stir with the sound of waking soldiers. Yawns accompany the clanking of armor and the scent of porridge beginning to cook in large iron pots set over smoldering embers. Leliana doesn’t stop to observe the scene and continues on towards her ravens. She sends them off one by one, but at the final raven, she makes sure to give it an extra treat. After all, this raven will be traveling the greatest distance out of all her birds. Once she has the letter securely fastened to the raven’s leg, she watches as the raven departs in a thunder of feathers and wing-flaps. It leaves a single black feather in its wake, and Leliana idly twirls it between her index finger and thumb.

She watches it grow smaller and smaller in the distance and hopes that it will arrive safely to the sun-ensconced northeastern shores and fruitful vineyards of the letter’s address. Leliana bends her head and offers up a silent prayer to the Maker. Let its recipient be just as open to the idea as peace as Cassandra seems to be.

 

* * *

 

Ellana grows stronger, and now, she can walk by herself. She thanks Sylaise for her blessings as she weaves healing magic around her legs and her arm once more. Her magic is almost at full strength now, and she can embed the healing magic deeper into her flesh and bones. The sweet relief threading through her limbs makes Ellana almost laugh out loud with joy.

But with her returning strength, Ellana knows that she must return home. The possibility at peace still tugs at her thoughts insistently, and she supposes that this is a remnant of her mother’s legacy, clinging to her bones.

Half of her still wants vengeance. She wants winter to choke out the fires of the Chantry, for frost and lightning to cut down the men and women who killed her mother in front of her very eyes. Sometimes, it feels like Elgar’nan’s own fires are in her soul, stoking the urge for revenge higher and higher and higher. But it’s so exhausting. It takes too much out of her, and now, in the fields of war, she finds that the price is far too high. She used to be twenty and naive. Now, she is older and too weary for naivety. She would rather have her men alive than dead, and if it means setting aside her personal burdens aside, then so be it.

Ellana admits that the thought of killing Divine Renata is immensely appealing though.

But the time comes when she must return home, and the time comes when the forces of the Chantry begin to move again. She can hear it in the distance — that grating sound of armor and iron, of sword and shield, of the slow yet steady pound of feet against the packed ground — and she knows what she must do.

She asks Cassandra for pen and paper on the second to last night that she visits her. Cassandra gives her a strange look before she tears out a piece of paper from her own journal and hands her a pen carved out of a raven’s feather. Ellana smiles when she sees the feather; ravens are her brother’s birds, birds of Dirthamen and birds of a smarter nature. She likes ravens and picks up the quill with a determined glint in her eye.

Ellana starts building a cipher, and for Cassandra’s sake, she translates it over to Common. The blocky style of Common feels strange to write after spending so many years writing Dalish script, but she tries her best. She adds in symbols, mixes in a few characters pulled from High Arlathan, and manages to make a code that’s serviceable enough. She hopes that there’s enough Common and dwarven runes to prevent other elves from reading it, and she knows that there are enough parts derived from High Arlathan to keep humans from cracking it. It would be far more treasonous to give Cassandra her stone of farspeech despite how much _easier_ that would be, so Ellana makes up for that with this.

When Cassandra comes for the final night, Ellana hands her one copy of the cipher. “A gift for the weeks of convalescence you have given me,” she says cheekily.

“A letter?” Cassandra asks as she turns over the paper. Ellana almost giggles from the adorable look of confusion that crosses over Cassandra’s face.

“No, a cipher,” Ellana corrects. “We have to keep up communication in some way after all. You are not getting rid of me that easily, Cassandra Pentaghast.”

“I wouldn’t get rid of you,” Cassandra grumbles. “I might rather stay with you.”

Ellana pauses. It’s surprisingly tender, the way she says it, and although her words are brief and short, Ellana can feel the heavy emotion behind it. She never expected to form a friend here in the vestiges of the battle, but she thinks that Cassandra has been far more of a friend to her than any other human she’s met so far.

“And I feel the same,” she tells Cassandra softly. “But we must go. I can already hear your men beginning to move to the next battle, and I must return to my people. We have our own work to do as well. Peace is not an easy task.”

“No, it isn’t,” Cassandra exhales heavily. “But I’ll write to you. Where should I send it?”

“Adahlennar,” Ellana replies. “And if I am somewhere else, the mail service will forward it to me. What about you?”

Cassandra hesitates before she reaches over to hold Ellana’s right hand and whisper, “We’re going to attack again soon.”

“Oh,” Ellana says numbly. The prospect of another battle so close on the horizon makes her feel empty inside, as if this war is slowly hollowing her out. “I suppose there will be mages again.”

Cassandra nods jerkily, and her jaw tenses. Ellana reaches up to cup Cassandra’s jawline with her left hand, and although she still can’t do much with it, she gently brushes her fingers across the line of Cassandra’s cheek. “I know this is taking a great deal out of us,” she whispers. “We are betraying both our nations at the same time. I will send a raven that can find you, do not worry. If we meet on the battlefield… Do not hesitate.”

“No,” Cassandra suddenly says, vicious and fierce with fear. “If I see you on the battlefield, I will turn away. I will not fight you, not if we are going to make peace together. Not that.”

“Strange to think how we have managed to become friends on a battlefield,” Ellana laughs. The sound is breathy and light, but she feels so incredibly strange. Her heart flutters like a white-winged thing, and she slowly pulls away from Cassandra as she says, “Very well then. May your Maker guide your path and light your way, and may the Creators shine down on us both.”

“May your gods watch over you, and may Andraste and the Maker protect us both,” Cassandra murmurs, mimicking the same prayer. She gets up and offers a hand to Ellana. Ellana slowly drags herself up and stretches her limbs.

She suspects that this will be the last time that she will see Cassandra for a while. Both of them have much work to do, and Ellana wishes that they had more time. Unfortunately, time is one of the things they have a dire shortage of. They both live on the border of a minute, of an hour, and as the days slip past, Ellana knows that more blood splashes down on the packed ground of the Dales and of the Orlesian Empire.

 _“Dareth shiral,”_ Ellana exhales out before she turns her back and starts walking towards her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> locations of the dales:  
>  **adahlennar** , _the forest of many years_  
>  nestled between the forests of the emerald graves and the expansive fields of dirthavaren, adahlennar is a city that houses many artifacts and holds archives of the elves' history. in some cases, it even outshines halamshiral in the level of historical acuity and records that it holds. a large population of historians, scribes, and archivists thrives here. every year, the keepers of the clans gather here to add their own clans' history to the records.
> 
>  **the exalted plains / dirthavaren**  
>  when the elves first arrived in the dales, they knelt to the ground and wept tears of thankfulness. they named the plains "dirthavaren" meaning "the promise" to represent the promise that andraste gave them. several decades later, the area earned the moniker "exalted" because of all the remnants of ancient arlathan in the area. some viewed this as a blessing from the gods and nicknamed dirthavaren "the exalted plains." now, divine renata finds it humorous to send an exalted march to that area, and the chantry soldiers view the name as a sign from the maker that they will succeed.
> 
>  **tirera'vun** , _the edge of the sleeping sun_  
>  this city is known for its extensive hunting grounds that sprawl out around the settlement. hunting is rich there, and the temple of blood is located here. the temple of blood is the largest temple dedicated to andruil, and it's considered to be one of the main temples of the dales. many hunters train here as apprentices and learn how to slip in and out of the shadows. it's also one of the main cities (the other being misu'rogathe) that has special training centers for eager apprentices wanting to join the emerald knights. the shemlen call this city "lydes."
> 
> the locations are a combination of in-game lore and knowledge combined with a heavy dash of headcanon.


	4. Chapter 4

“Mages?” High Commander Tamlen gasps. “The Chantry’s using _mages?_ And Ellana out of all people is _missing?!_ That seems almost impossible!”

High Commander Velanna thumps her hand against the table and snarls, “Hypocrites, all of them. We should have exterminated them while we had the chance.”

Lyna of Clan Mahariel considers Velanna for only a moment before she points out, “Extermination implies that they are less than people. Perhaps you should reconsider your phrasing before you point out something like that.” 

“Do they even deserve to be called people at this point? They have killed our people and destroyed our towns and our villages,” Darrian of Clan Tabris retorts. He twirls a long dagger in his hand with a practiced deftness before he points it at Lyna. “And you would be a fool to forget it.”

Lyna’s eyes flash dangerously, but Mahanon cuts in to say, “Now, now, hold onto your tempers, all of you. We are all Scions here. There is no need to be rude.”

“Typical of a Lavellan,” Tabris mutters. “Blasted diplomats, all of you.”

Mahanon pointedly ignores the commander and continues, “Consider the fact that we just sieged their cities and completely took one. Yes, the Chantry has killed our people and yes, the Divine is an absolute terror of a woman, but I do not think we are completely excusable from this entire war. We _are_ burning them out of their homes.” 

Another Scion — Nesiari of Clan Alerion — looks up from her notepad to nod approvingly towards Mahanon. “Very well done on your part by the way, Commander Lavellan. I heard your work with reconnaissance and infiltration was very successful,” she says. “It’s always nice to have another part of the war wrapped up and done with. Only a few more cities to go before we hit Val Royeaux, no?” It seems as though she’s completely ignored the “burning them out of their homes” part of his point. It’s times like these when Mahanon wishes her cousin, Nelaros, had been chosen as Scion instead.

Actually, Mahanon wants to shake them all out of sheer frustration. It’s not that they’re incompetent. In fact, that’s the complete opposite of what all the Scions are. The High Commanders of the Dales are all incredibly good at what they do. After all, it’s one of the reasons why they were all elected to their positions just before the inception of the war. Whether that be Tabris with his razored daggers or Ariane of Clan Sulahn with her tactical mind, they are all excellent architects of war. Himself included, even. But if put more bluntly, then Mahanon supposes that they are all incredibly good at killing — otherwise known as “protecting” — people. 

The only issue is that the Scions do not all get along. This meeting is a prime example of that. Already, Mahanon can see Alim of Clan Surana picking out dirt from underneath his fingernails instead of paying attention. Tabris, as usual, toys with his daggers and flips them in his hand idly as the meeting drags on, and Nesiari spends more time writing down new ideas for different cavalry formations than paying attention to what’s going on. That was why they chose Ellana as one of the new Scions. The elders from the council of Keepers hoped that her diplomatic experience would keep them all in check, and they were right. With her at the meetings, everyone had a turn to speak and if they didn’t make their point quickly and concisely, Ellana forced the Scions to move along to the next point with a good deal of charm that she honed over the years. However, his sister isn’t here, and Mahanon’s left to pick up the slack.

“So, what is the plan?” Velanna asks. “Do we just leave your sister to the Chantry and have them torture her?” 

Mahanon jerks his head over to her and for once, he lets his anger get the better of him as he hisses, _“Never_. I would rather have the templars rip off my vallaslin, line by line, than have my sister in danger. However, wasting our time does nothing here. We have been arguing and chattering and bickering for the better half of a candlemark, before and after we received the mission report from Merrill of Clan Sabrae.”

“We have had longer meetings,” Nesiari comments. “Surely your patience can run a little further, Lavellan, especially for such a critical matter like this.”

“We did spend the first twenty minutes debating the merits of including bottled bees as a makeshift grenade,” Ariane points out. “I think that classifies as wasted time, Alerion.”

Mahariel nods along and adds, “That was not a conversation we needed to have during this meeting compared to other critical issues that demand our attention.”

“It was a great idea,” Tabris grumbles. Nesiari nods along, and he continues, “You all are just boring people who can’t see innovation when it’s right in front of you.”

Tamlen mumbles, “I thought it was cool.” Tabris brightens and flashes Tamlen a grin that’s brighter than the sun.

“This is exactly what I am talking about,” Mahanon groans. He slumps back heavily against his chair, but the ironbark of his Scion armor digs into the small of his back until he straightens his spine. He reluctantly pushes himself back up and says, “We need to figure out what our next course of action is.”

“Is it not obvious?” Nesiari asks. “We capture Val Royeaux. After all, we have already taken down Montsimmard. It only makes sense to continue onward.”

“But is that our original goal of the war?” Mahanon counters. “We only started this war because the Chantry started marching troops towards us. The reason why we fought was for defense, not for conquest.”

“Having the Empire under the Dales would be nice though,” Velanna mutters.

“No, it would not,” Ariane says firmly. She spreads her hands wide and gestures as she speaks. “Introducing countless human populations under our rule is bound to start discord and strife. Then, we would have a rebellion on our hands, and the territory would be too large for us to control and manage properly. Look at what the Empire is already experiencing. There is strife in the eastern portion of the Empire, but Orlais is too busy marching on us to pay attention to it.” She raps her knuckles against the map, right above Starkhaven, and says, “I would not be surprised if parts of the Orlesian Empire broke off in the near future. No, conquering the Empire isn’t the solution that we need to the war.”

Mahanon thinks of Ellana, half-broken and still wounded in the fields outside Adahlennar, and wonders if this is the opportunity they have to convince the Scions of peace. “Then, what about a peace treaty?” Mahanon dares to ask. “Conquest clearly isn’t an option, and thank you for that input, Tactician Sulahn, so why don’t we try peace instead?”

“Peace? Are you even listening to yourself, Lavellan?” Velanna snorts. “Watch your words. You know what the Council decreed. No more peace attempts with the Chantry. They do not intend on stopping their Exalted March any time soon, so that means we cannot let our guard down.”

Tamlen shifts in his seat and exchanges a look with Mahariel before he says, “I don’t mean to stir up bad memories, but didn’t your own mother die while trying to establish a peace treaty? I doubt the Divine will settle for peace either.”

Mahanon stiffens, and that makes Tamlen grimace. It’s only the thought of Ellana that keeps Mahanon from saying anything more. He won’t lie; he still thinks that this is the most foolish idea that Ellana’s ever come up with. To consort with the enemy in secret is also another dangerous act that Ellana’s pulled during her absence, and even though the Right Hand helped with Ellana’s convalescence, Mahanon doesn’t trust her at all.

“How are we going to achieve peace, Lavellan?” Mahariel asks. Mahanon glances up at her and sees only curiosity in her eyes instead of the rigid discomfort on Velanna and Nesiari’s expressions. She leans forward and props her elbows up on the map as she asks, “I doubt that you could convince the Council of Keepers to meet with the Chantry for peace after that massacre. Five diplomats dead at the hands of templars on the Chantry’s own grounds.”

Now, High Commander Surana speaks up. His voice is slow and measured, and compared to someone like Velanna, his voice is soft and barely heard over the ruckus. However, the entire council of Scions still, one by one, as they hear him speak because it’s such a rarity for him to speak. “You want peace,” he says. Mahanon nods silently, and slowly, the rest of the Scions nod as well. They may be good at their job, but this is not a job that they love doing. 

Surana purses his lips before he continues, “In order to have peace, you must have agreement from both sides, and in order to have agreement from their side, you will have to break Council law to meet them.” He levels his gaze on Mahanon and says, “You will have to be marked _harellan_ if you want your peace. Are you willing to pay that price, High Commander Mahanon of Clan Lavellan?”

Mahanon swallows hard. The truth is that no, he doesn’t want to pay that price. Mahanon would be perfectly fine if he never met anyone from the Chantry at all. His mother died at a templar’s hands, and Mahanon would rather shove a knife between a templar’s ribs than to engage someone like that in diplomatic counsel. But this is Ellana’s little wellspring of an idea, and he doesn’t want to let his sister down.

The hesitation is enough of an answer for Surana who settles back down and resumes picking at his nails. “I figured so,” he says. “And I think that goes for all of us, judging from the silence. Let us return back to the original point of the meeting. We have wasted enough time.” He chuckles mirthlessly at that. “These are the times when I miss little Ellana. Always on task, that one.”

Mahanon doesn’t know what to say, but all eyes are on him. He squirms in his seat, trying to think of something to say, but Mahariel saves him by briskly saying, “Very well. Surana brings up a good point. We are wasting time. If we are to storm Val Royeaux, then we need to consolidate our forces while keeping the eastern flank of our borders protected. Since High Commander Ellana is missing in action, we will need someone to lead reinforcements near Adahlennar.”

“We still need someone in charge of reconaissance here, so either Lavellan or Tabris must stay,” Ariane says. Her face sobers as she peers over the map. Her gaze darts between the cities inscribed on the map, and she reaches over to tap Misu’rogathe. “There are fresh recruits waiting in Misu’rogathe. Too green for the assault on Val Royeaux, but good enough to reinforce the eastern troops. After all, I hear that most of the Emerald Knights like Lindiranae and Cillian survived the surprise mage attacks. Wounded, but alive.”

“We really can’t ask anything more of them,” Nesiari muses. “I read the report. Too many dead halla for my liking. I do not have any additional resources either from the clan herds or Ghilan’nain’s temple to provide for the cavalry.”

“I can go to Adahlennar,” Mahanon quickly says. He slides his own marker from Montsimmard to Misu’rogathe and then to Tirera’vun. “I can pick up the new recruits on my journey there, and then, I can rally the remaining forces of Ellana’s troops. They are all familiar with me enough.”

Tamlen rubs his hands together as he takes a look at the map as well. He studies the markers left on the map and quietly asks, “Are you sure you’re going to be alright? Won’t you be compromised by your loss?”

“My sister is not dead, not yet,” Mahanon forcefully replies. He lays his hands flat on the table, palms down, and says, “And if anything, this gives me enough emotional fodder to fight the Chantry with.”

“Why don’t you take someone else with you?” Nesiari suggests. “Another Scion to help shoulder the burden, especially if… If Ellana doesn’t make it.”

“She will make it,” Mahanon insists. “I can do this on my own.” He silently sends up a prayer to the gods to let him go to Adahlennar on his own. At least he can protect his sister and hide her plans from the rest of the Scions for a little while longer. 

“Nesiari is right,” Mahariel says. Her voice is crisp and clipped as she moves the markers on the map. “Take another Scion with you, Lavellan. Tabris is out because he needs to oversee our scouts and agents in this region. Sulahn, Sabrae, and I need to oversee the main bulk of our troops here, so we cannot join you. Anyone else willing to go to the other front?”

Mahanon’s heart sinks when he hears that. The only people left are Alim of Clan Surana, Nesiari of Clan Alerion, and Velanna of Clan Boranehn. At least two — Nesiari and Velanna — are more interested in destroying the Chantry’s march at the very root of it, and the other — Alim — was clear on the impossibility of peace and vague on his own stance. At least Mahanon knows what kind of attitude he’s working with when Nesiari and Velanna enter the picture, but to his chagrin, Alim commits another rarity when he clears his throat.

Alim of Clan Surana reaches over with an even, measured pace and carefully slides his marker across the Dales to join Mahanon’s own at Adahlennar. “I will go with Lavellan,” he says in a soft tone. Despite the benign nature of the words, Mahanon looks at Alim warily. It’s almost dangerously soft. 

Mahariel claps her hands together and says, “Meeting adjourned.”

Mahanon has the terrible, sinking feeling that this matter isn’t quite adjourned yet. In fact, he wonders just how much worse it’s going to get once they reach the eastern front.

 

* * *

 

The Right Hand of the Divine is behaving strangely.

Cullen doesn’t like to make assumptions about his higher-ups and his commanders, but Cassandra Pentaghast is growing more erratic day by day. She lapses into silence at inopportune times, and she waits by the messengers’ tent more than Cullen would expect. Whenever a raven flutters in with a delivery, she jolts before resuming whatever work she was doing. Not to mention that entire thing about the dead she had after the first battle with the mages.

Perhaps she had a terrible experience with magic. Cullen can understand that. He shudders and still has night terrors of the mages in the Korcari Wilds. Sometimes, when he shuts his eyes, he can see the magic flowing over skin and warping flesh into abominations, shades, twisted and wretched things of pure destruction. He can’t remember everything perfectly. Whether that was from his young age at the time or the sheer terror blocking everything out, he can’t remember, and he’s grateful for that small mercy. That battle with fire and lightning blocking out the sky was a horrific reminder of his childhood, but he kept on fighting because he had no other choice. Perhaps Cassandra felt the same way.

Cullen drags his spoon through his food and sighs. The beans are too mushy and watery — overcooked, perhaps — and if he was of lower rank, he’d be more inclined to help the cook out. He’s a lieutenant general now and the youngest one at that. He has to do _something_ to maintain his reputation in this camp.

Look; he can already see General Samson making his way down the line. Cullen wolfs down the rest of his food, ignoring the texture and other strong opinions he has about the food, and hurries to put his plate away. Just in time too. The general folds his hands behind his back and calls out, “Cullen, my good man!”

Cullen hastily stands at attention and says, “Yes, General.”

General Samson considers him and laughs, “At ease, Lieutenant General. You look like someone just rammed a stick up your ass.” Cullen stiffens even more at that comment, and the general claps him on the back. “Come join us in the meeting. Maker knows I’d rather hear another opinion other than that blasted Evangeline. Lovely woman but more stubborn than a wild druffalo.”

“What’s this I hear about a druffalo?” a voice asks behind them. Cullen jumps at the sound and immediately stands to attention when he sees General Evangeline de Brassard. 

Samson only laughs when he sees her and says, “Well, if it isn’t the old gal herself.”

“I almost prefer wild druffalo over old gal,” Evangeline sighs. She glances over at Cullen and says, “At ease, Lieutenant. Are you going to join us again?”

“At my invitation,” Samson replies. He drags Cullen with him as they head to the other side of camp. “Did you hear the news?”

The smile dies off Evangeline’s face and she exhales slowly before she says, “Yes. Montsimmard, captured. I never thought I’d ever see that day come.”

“Those damn Scions must be in perfect synchronization with the way they’re advancing through our territory,” Samson grumbles. “Almost too perfect, if you ask me. I bet their war meetings are over in less than a quarter’s worth of a candlemark.”

“A shame that our own communications are so lacking,” Evangeline sighs. “I’d rather have a meeting that’s a quarter candlemark long than all this incessant mail being flown back and forth from camp to camp. We can barely keep tabs on all our troops like we’re supposed to.”

“Western front’s been having a mess over that, I guess,” Samson grumbles. “Maybe if we just figured out that some of our troops were going rogue, we would’ve had operations tightened up and working together instead of falling apart like moldy bread.”

A pang of guilt drops deep in Cullen’s gut. He knows what happened on the western front. Even involved in it, if he had to be honest. That was his second post after he survived a total massacre of a defeat near the latter end of the western front. He remembers the Dalish storming in on halla with great horns that twisted up to the sky. Somehow, they trained their halla to attack with their horns and hooves as well while their riders unleashed hell on the battlefield. But that wasn’t the point here. That was a sight seen on nearly every battlefield along the fronts of the Exalted March. The point here is that his second post — with Commander Meredith Stannard — was the one that went horribly wrong. The one that Samson is referencing right now.

Samson doesn’t pay any attention to Evangeline or Cullen, and instead, he folds his hands behind his back and complains, “I mean, how did anyone miss the problems with that Stannard’s camp? Completely rogue! That woman went too far. We have accords against war crimes for a reason. It amazes me whenever I think about how no one reported her during the entirety of the war until the Right Hand stepped in to investigate. Maker knows how many Merediths are among our ranks until it’s far too late.” 

Evangeline glances over at Cullen’s blanching face and with a voice almost torture-soft, she asks, “You were stationed with Commander Stannard before being moved over here, yes?”

Samson stops to harrumph, “What? What did you say?”

Cullen stares, wide-eyed, at Evangeline and now Samson who turns around with a puzzled expression on his face. He opens his mouth to answer, but his tongue is dry and he can’t find the words. 

Samson isn’t entirely right. No one exposed Meredith for her war crimes — not even him — until a mercenary apostate by the name of Hawke and her motley crew came as paid reinforcements. Even though they constantly protested against her actions, no one listened or came to investigate. Until the Right Hand of the Divine personally came to hear out Hawke. Cullen bows his head and finds that he has no words to explain his complacency other than the strange, insinuating charisma of Meredith Stannard that made him believe that he was doing the right thing.

“Oh, you weren’t in with her lot, were you, lad?” Samson asks. His voice is quieter, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck as General Evangeline glares daggers at him.

“Absolutely no sense of social cues,” she mutters. She gives Samson a shove on the shoulder and keeps both of them walking. “What happens will happen,” she says firmly. “What’s left to do is to make sure that we change to be better people in the end and do what we know is right.”

When they arrive, the Right Hand is already there, writing a letter. There’s a raven by her side that caws and flaps its wings when they arrive. Cullen squints at the raven. He doesn’t see the usual ribbon that marks the Nightingale’s ravens. Cassandra finishes her letter before putting away her graphite and tying it to the raven’s leg. Cullen doesn’t see what the letter says, but Cassandra folds the second piece of paper and tucks it away in her own pocket before she looks back up at them. 

“Oh, Lieutenant, I wasn’t expecting you,” Cassandra says. She sends the raven off, and it circles around their heads once more before it heads to the west. 

Cullen’s eyes follow the raven before he looks back at his commanding officer and salutes her. Samson pats his shoulder and says, “I invited him back, your Worship. Figured more heads would be more useful for coming up with a better solution for all of this.”

Cassandra studies Cullen’s face for a moment, and he tries to wipe off all traces of suspicion off his face. She blinks a few times before she relents and gestures over to the map on the war table, already laid out with the right markers. “Be my guest,” she says with a nod.

Cullen hesitates for only a moment before he steps forward to survey the war.

 

* * *

 

The way back to the forward camp outside the boundaries of Adahlennar is difficult to say the least. Ellana has to crawl through the tall grasses to keep the Chantry forces from seeing her, and after that, she’s left with the ordeal of tracking her compatriots down. From what she can tell, they’ve moved camp after that battle.

Ellana tries to call Mahanon with her stone of farspeech, but there is no reply. Ellana sighs and wonders where he is. The last time she spoke to him, he was on the opposite border, figuring out what to do with the Orlesians in Montsimmard. She supposes that they’re either halfway to capturing the city or they already have. Mahanon failed to mention that during the only time he ever called back. Ellana supposes that his concern for her health and wellbeing overrided all other worries at the time. 

She does take a detour to a nearby creek to wash off the blood and dirt encrusted on both her armor and her body. Ellana snatches a few stalks of elfroot and squeezes the sap out to act a makeshift soap. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than simmering in her own stench for another day longer. Then, Ellana staggers back to the forward camp after too many days of creeping through the fields and silently passing through the wards. She doesn’t want to set off the wards and cause every soldier to start a fight. That might trigger the enemy camp’s attention as well and start off another battle. That is exactly what Ellana doesn’t need. Most of her time is spent unweaving a space large enough for her to squeeze through and then sealing it back up with her own magic behind her. It takes time and painstaking skill, but Ellana was not made a Scion without good reason. She can do it, but in her current state, it’s harder than usual.

Still, she makes it back. Ellana’s about to call out a greeting to surprise everyone, but to her own surprise, she sees her brother and High Commander Surana stride into the camp. She cranes her head to get a better look and sees another regiment’s worth of reinforcements behind them. Some of them are Mahanon’s troops while some are Surana’s. The rest are all comprised of nervous faces that look far too young for war. Her expression stiffens as she realizes that they must be new recruits, either from Tirera’vun or Misu’rogathe.

She draws back from the camp, but she can’t escape her twin’s notice that easily. Mahanon’s eyes dart towards her hiding space the minute she moves, and she sighs. Ellana reaches into her pocket for her stone of farspeech and sends a brief ping to him. Mahanon’s hand strays towards his own pouch hanging from his belt, and he sends a response ping back. However, he doesn’t betray her spot. Ellana cradles her left arm close to her chest before settling down to watch the proceedings. 

It’s not that eventful, actually. Merrill, Lindiranae, and Cillian tell the main bulk of the story to Surana and her brother while the rest of her troops help the others with accommodations. Ellana swathes herself with a handful of magic and sneaks her way to the war tent. She smiles when she sees that her own chair is still there. Half of her thought that they would clear it away with her extended absence. 

She settles down into her seat and waits. The tent flap opens, and Merrill is the first to step through. Merrill actually stumbles when she sees Ellana at the table and cries out, “High Commander!” Lindiranae shoulders her way through when she hears Merrill cry out and then sags against the war table with sheer relief.

Mahanon merely steps through the tent and says dryly, “You never miss an opportunity for dramatics, dear sister of mine.”

“Perhaps you are speaking of yourself,” Ellana returns. 

His lips twitch up into a smile and then, his smile wavers. The only sign of the initial desperation that she heard during her call with him. “I knew you were alive,” he says softly. “You are far too stubborn to die.”

“Entirely correct,” she tells him. She glances up at Surana and asks, “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company, High Commander Surana? I thought you were occupied in Montsimmard on the western front.”

Surana inclines his head towards her and says, “It is good to see you alive.” His gaze drifts down to her left hand and forearm which still look absolutely ravaged. The flesh there isn’t completely healed, and it looks rather unsightly. At least the wounds along her legs are relatively hidden by her armor. Her hand twinges too much for her to keep her left gauntlet on. “I came to provide assistance with the eastern front given your temporary absence,” he says. “Do not worry. I intend to stay. I do not think you can continue leading your troops in battle at the forefront with that wound alone.” 

Ellana blinks. It’s rare for Surana to speak this much in one go. Behind Surana, Mahanon shakes his head, almost imperceptibly so. Ellana restrains the urge to frown and instead, she gives him a smile trained by too many years of work and says, “Then, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Adahlennar, High Commander Alim of Clan Surana.”

 

* * *

 

_Dear Leliana,_

_I suppose your birds are practically blotting out the sun in the south. I eagerly read your letter, hoping for good news. In a way, I believe I was proven right and in another way, I suppose I was proven wrong._

_I know these past years have been difficult and rough, but no sea exists without storms, and this seems to be one of them. The Exalted March takes its toll on you, my friend. Even on the page, you seem tired._ _I will endeavor to visit you in Val Royeaux and uplift your spirits as best as I can. It has been such a long time since I have been in the heart of the empire. I find that my work has anchored me to the shores of my beloved Antiva, but what kind of friend am I if I cannot even afford a single comfort to such a dear friend?_

_Light a candle for me in the window, Leliana, and we shall gossip and chat like the good days. I know that on my part, there is one tidbit in particular I would love to regale you on. I think you know what it is. No matter; I shall look forward to seeing you again._

_Love,_ _  
_ _Josephine_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> locations of the dales:  
>  **misu'rogathe** , _the blade towards courage_  
>  this city is home to the largest temple dedicated to elgar'nan, the god of revenge and the sun. they say the sun shines brightest here out of all the dales. the city also hosts one of the largest training centers in the dales for the military, rivaling that of tirera'vun. however, misu'rogathe tends to attract those that are more apt with swords and shields rather than the bows and daggers that the city of tirera'vun prizes. the shemlen call this city "verchiel."


	5. Chapter 5

Josephine Montilyet arrives in a flurry of grace, charm, and gold. Even though Antiva’s been a full-fledged nation since Ancient, most people in the Orlesian Empire still view it as a backwater country. Not quite as wild and degenerate as tribal territory deep in the southern wilds, but it’s still a ragabond place in the eyes of the Orlesians. A country full of pirate kings and merchant thieves, they say. Nestled between the lands and the seas, Antiva is a country of gold and blood, both running thick and hot in the veins of the land and the people.

That may be true, but Leliana knows the power Antiva holds in their glittering hands. Josephine Montilyet simply brings that truth out in the best way possible, spinning and weaving political connections and dancing amongst the rich Orlesian elite. She’s the daughter of one of the wealthiest merchant families in the entirety of Thedas; she does it because she has every right to. But more than that, Leliana knows that Josephine has something that few nobles do: a kind heart. 

The Antivan woman was one of the major figures in politics that enabled the Grey Wardens to gain access to more stores of weapons and supplies, and Leliana will always be thankful to her for it. She remembers the cold, hungry days when she wandered with the Wardens, and Josephine’s Maker-sent interference gave them warm places to sleep and enough food to last them through the end-days. Leliana repaid the favor with an audience with the Divine and the Emperor of Orlais, and now, Josephine is the head ambassador of Antiva. A fitting job for the woman, Leliana thinks, and the woman is more than formidable in the playing field of the Great Game. If anyone can help Leliana and Cassandra pull off a peace treaty, it is Josephine Montilyet. 

Leliana has already set up some tea and the small chocolates that Josephine adores best in her personal rooms at Val Royeaux. A knock on the door is all it takes, and Josephine of House Montilyet steps inside, bedecked in all the vibrant colors of Antiva. “Leliana, it is so good to see you again,” she says as she comes in for a hug.

Leliana buries her face in Josephine’s hair as she hugs her, tight with all the pent-up stress and sadness she’s dealt with, and Josephine rubs soothing circles against Leliana’s back. Leliana inhales in the sharp, honey-warm scent of Antivan spices and quietly says, “I would say the same to you, Josie.” She pulls away from Josephine and guides her to the table as she asks, “How is Antiva?”

“Slightly colder than usual for some strange reason, but it compares to nothing that the south could boast,” Josephine says. “How about you, Leliana? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” Her gaze lingers on Leliana’s face, and Leliana knows what Josephine sees. Dark circles deepened from sleepless nights, a new scar along the tip of her collarbone from a stray Dalish arrow, once scarlet-bright hair now dulled to old copper. The Exalted March has taken its toll on Leliana far more than the Blight ever did. 

“The March,” Leliana says, simple as can be.

Josephine’s expression twists with sympathy — or is it pity? — and she breathes out, “Ah.”

A wry smile twists Leliana’s lips as she adds, “Ugly and brutal at best.”

Josephine pours tea first for Leliana and then for herself. Rich, full-bodied tea like this is a luxury in the war, but the Divine in Val Royeaux has always had the gift of finding luxuries during hardships. As Josephine stirs a cube of sugar into her tea, she says, “The poetry and prose about it would have you think otherwise. Sister Amity, Lord Demetrius Aron and Ser Brandis of Lac Celestine are making quite the reputation for themselves.”

“And yet, Montsimmard fell to the elves,” Leliana replies, sharp and biting.

Josephine’s only indication of surprise is the twitch of her eyebrows, but she’s experienced enough to let her expression fall back down into blank and simple lines. “Lord Demetrius Aron sent a letter back home to speak of how this is a strategic retreat,” she says instead. “In his words, better to sacrifice Montsimmard than to sacrifice thousands and thousands of troops. The soldiers’ families in the countryside are thrilled with the survival of their sons and daughters for another day.”

“Demetrius was always good at getting himself out of sticky situations, both with the law and now with war, it seems,” Leliana snorts. She’s had her fair share of run-ins with the man at various affairs the Divine holds. Out of the three main leaders of the eastern front, she likes him the second-least. The privilege of being her least favorite goes solely to Sister Amity, but Lord Demetrius dabbles around more in noble circles that Josephine frequents. 

“You’re in a mood,” Josephine finally says with an appraising look in her eye.

Leliana exhales out a low sigh before she leans towards Josephine to say, “You read the letter. You know why.”

“I did and I know,” Josephine says.

“Your thoughts?”

Josephine takes the time to sip her tea, and the silence between them grows still. Then, Josephine says, “I would not have come to Orlais if I didn’t support the idea, my dear friend.”

Leliana finally moves to stir sugar and cream into her slowly cooling tea as she sighs, “Forgive me for the rudeness, Josie, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you arrived with other intentions as well.”

“No offense taken,” Josephine tells her. “The Left Hand of the Divine is keen as always.”

“The job requires it,” Leliana says. She tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice when she says it, but she’s sure that Josephine is perceptive enough to catch a glimpse of it.

“Of which I’m sure. But yes, you’re correct,” Josephine evenly replies. “However, I do agree with you. We all want an end to the March whether that be you or a rural family waiting for a son’s survival.”

Leliana sips her tea and lets the flavor spread over her tongue as she considers Josephine’s words. Even if Josie agrees, there has to be something more to her motives than her kind heart. Leliana hates herself for doubting her friend, but Leliana has learned all too well from previous mistakes. “What of Antiva?” she asks, just to prod at Josephine for any indication.

“Antiva is a country of merchants, Leliana,” Josephine sighs. She sets her cup down against the saucer with nary a clink. “What do you think?”

Ah, there it is. Leliana knows what Josephine wants and needs now. After all, she is an ambassador. Her primary job is to ensure her country remains strong. “Merchants operate best in war,” Leliana answers. 

“Not quite,” Josephine says. She leans in closer to Leliana, and amid the scent of tea and Antivan spice, Leliana can see the truth in Josephine’s face. “It’s a matter of supply and demand. Right now, Antiva is thriving, but some time in the future, Antiva and the rest of Thedas will run out of supplies to fuel the war.” She gestures artlessly to the window and continues, “The same goes for the Dales, but I do not want to wait and watch to see which side wins in the matter of attrition. That is when Antiva will fail. Better to thrive in peacetime than to live on a finite lifespan of war.”

There’s a glint in Josephine’s eyes that grows brighter with every word, and her hands move as she speaks, almost without her noticing it. Leliana has known Josephine long enough to know that there’s something beyond what she’s saying of attrition and demand. Leliana taps the edge of her teacup thoughtfully as she comments, “There’s more.”

“Again, keen as always,” Josephine says with a soft puff of laughter. Leliana inclines her head, and now, Josephine says in hushed whispers, “The March has pulled all focus from the empire to the Dales.”

“And?”

Josephine leans back against her chair and says, “While the Divine has devoted her attention to the Dales, the outskirts of the empire are beginning to stir.”

“Rebellion,” Leliana says with a sinking feeling deep in her throat. 

“Not quite. Not yet,” Josephine replies. “But soon.”

“Is it the Pentaghasts or the Free Marches?” Leliana asks as she trawls through her memory. There’s been whispers of secession ever since the inception of the Empire, and Divine Renata prefers to know where. Leliana is normally the one to provide that information, but now, Renata has her attention completely on the Dales. 

“Starkhaven,” Josephine says. Now, her expression is as dark as a stormy midnight, and Leliana knows that there must be more than just a whisper to merit a reaction like this.

So, Leliana quietly replies, “Ah. Fyruss, isn’t it?” The king of Starkhaven. From what Leliana recalls, he’s a man with too many ideals simmering in his marrow. She’s not surprised that it’s him.

Josephine nods and says, “He’s beginning to grow his influence and starting to rear his head up. He’s attracting Tevinter attention now.”

It’s something that Leliana’s had a vague awareness of via an agent she has stationed in Kirkwall, but she didn’t expect it to be grave enough for Josephine’s attention. Josephine draws a vague outline of Antiva on the table with her index finger as she says, “Focus on the south and you lose track of the north. Leave Starkhaven and Tevinter unchecked and we will all lose Antiva and the Free Marches. Something that even the Blight was unable to do.”

Leliana twines her fingers together — tea left forgotten in the cup — and gazes at Josephine. Enough on Antiva. “What are your personal thoughts on it then, Josie?” she asks. “Set aside Antiva, set aside the merchants and the economy and your duties. Give me your personal thoughts without the frills and lace.”

Josephine curls her fingers around the handle of her teacup. Her sun-warm fingers tap against the porcelain with a steady beat as she says, “You know I detest violence, Leliana. I always have after that one ball in Val Royeaux with that bard. I know how to use a knife, but that will never be my first option.”

It’s true. There is nothing beautiful about violence. As much as Leliana performs beautifully and efficiently in this kind of battlefield, there is nothing poetic about the war. Damn the way the bards sing about the March. Damn whatever Lord Demetrius and Sister Amity try to say about their work. Leliana has lived through both the Blight and the March to know that war is something that festers in the darkest parts of people and something that splashes out in clotting streaks of rotting red. It is disgusting, an unnecessary loss of life, and Leliana is ashamed to say that she almost lost sight of that miserable truth until Cassandra thrust the possibility of peace into the open light. Leliana has always feared the possibility that she was no better than Marjolaine, no better than the heartless likes of Divine Renata or Sister Amity, nothing more than a knife in the Divine’s hands. Now, she turns away from that possibility and steps into the open light. Perhaps it’s redemption — or the lack of — that motivates Leliana. Whatever it is, it is what pushes Leliana to ask, “Then, are you with me?”

Josephine smiles a slow, secret kind of smile that hints at something far more than what she has said thus far. “Of course,” she tells Leliana, soft and full of hope.

 

* * *

 

“You’ll have a permanent scar,” Neria of Clan Surana finally declares. The healer brushes some stray leaves of elfroot off her thighs as she gets up from the chair. She pushes her magnifying glasses up from the bridge of her nose until they’re resting on top of her head again. “But you certainly pulled through. With the level that your injuries were at and without any outside help, I would have expected you to die on the battlefield. No lyrium, no potions, nothing but your own magic. A damn miracle from the Evanuris themselves, I’d say.”

“Ma serannas,” Ellana weakly replies. She thinks she’s had about twenty potions and countless poultices from Cassandra alone. Ellana flexes her left hand and tests it out again. The former gaping wound has now closed up and formed a large scar webbing over the lines of her palm. The pain is gone, thanks to Neria. Well, the pain from the wound. The healing burned, and Ellana had to bite down on a rag to keep herself from screaming.

Neria wipes the sweat off her brow and says, “Interesting challenge to heal too. I had to reknit all the old skin together, pull your shattered bones back together in the right shape, and reconnect all the right arteries. The scar is mostly from me forcing your hand to regenerate new tissue rather than the old parts that were already there.” She goes over to the small basin across from the tent to wash her hands and snorts, “I hope this satisfies the owed favor, cousin dear.”

Alim doesn’t look up at Neria from the reports he’s flipping through and in his usual slow voice, he says, “Much appreciated, cousin.”

Neria pulls off the magnifying glasses from her head and shakes them at Alim for emphasis as she says, “Look at you, Mr. Scion. Ignoring me in favor of your papers. I hauled my tools and my bags across the Dales to join you on the western front, you know. I liked it better when you were just another annoying younger cousin.”

“You did not have to walk very much, considering how we have the eluvians restored. In addition, my status as a Scion never stopped you from being rude, Neria,” Alim responds, still flipping through the papers. “Besides, you had your chance at the position. You turned it down yourself.”

Neria folds her arms and retorts, “I’m not  _ rude. _ I’m simply telling you the truth. Besides, look at yourself, hypocrite. Not even bothering to look up. I bet you’re like that in your little Scion meetings too. Glad I’m not in your place though. Too much paperwork, not enough hands-on work.” She shakes her head and starts putting away her tools and herbs as she mutters, “Insufferable bastard.”

“I love you too, cousin,” Alim absently replies.

Neria grumbles something under her breath, but Ellana suspects that it’s something along the lines of “idiot cousin” and “love you too.” Ellana smiles at the sound of it. No matter how long Neria has lived in the Dales, her voice never quite loses the lilt of the city. Ellana remembers when Clan Surana and Clan Tabris brought back several families living in a shemlen city, claiming them as an extended part of their bloodline. Neria of Clan Surana and Darrian of Clan Tabris were some of the city elves. Ellana supposed that they’re doing quite well with one being an eminent healer with the temple of Sylaise and the other being one of the Scions. 

“You’re going to rest whether you like it or not,” Neria snaps. The playful, teasing expression drops off her face in favor of a much more serious one. “I’m putting in a formal request for you to be transferred to Halamshiral to recuperate. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“What? No!” Ellana sputters. “This is  _ my _ front,  _ my _ troops. I cannot leave them behind.” Her voice pitches upward in sheer alarm. She’s worked with these troops for so long, and she can’t bear to leave them behind. But also, she’s worried that leaving Adahlennar will mean that she has little control over what happens on the battlefield. By extension, that means she has little control over what happens to  _ Cassandra. _ Ellana drags her hands down her face out of sheer frustration, and the small fear in her heart starts to bloom.

“You can and you will,” Neria says firmly. “You better be damn grateful for it too. I hate filling out paperwork.” Her expression softens when she glances at Ellana’s face and she says, “Oh, wipe that frown off your face, little Lavellan. Think of it this way. By taking the time to recover, your wounds will heal more completely and you’ll be at less risk for further injury. It wouldn’t do for a Scion to die this early.” She jerks her thumb over to Alim and Mahanon. “After all, you have to be there to keep my cousin in check, miss diplomat.”

“But—“

“None of that,” Neria admonishes, sharp and quick. “My cousin and your brother are more than capable of handling operations on the western front. Would you like me to list off your extensive list of injuries again?”

Ellana shakes her head. She already knows. Multiple burns, arrow wounds, lacerations and gaping slashes, and of course, her left palm. It’s enough to kill any soldier, and Ellana doesn’t want to risk the possibility of letting anyone else other than Mahanon know about the truth of her healing. Frankly, she doesn’t think anyone would ever guess that the Right Hand of the Divine herself helped heal her, but Ellana can already see the suspicion in Neria’s eyes. 

Alim sets the reports aside and folds his hands together as he says, “Do not worry, Lavellan. Like my cousin said, we are more than capable of doing the work.” A cunning smile lazily curls its way across his face as he says, “And if the shemlen wish to play with traps and glyphs, I am more than happy to oblige.” 

A chill runs down Ellana’s back and the fear skitters down her spine with an alarming speed. Neria of Clan Surana was first offered the position of Scion and High Commander because of her talents with healing. The keepers of the clans hoped that she would offer tactical insights based on her extensive experience with the shemlen and her talents on healing and other magics. When Neria rejected that, the position was handed down to Alim and for good reason. Ellana thinks that Alim may be the most talented person in the entirety of the Dales when it comes to the arts of runes and glyphs. Alim earned that reputation after casting a hex glyph of death over an entire horde of darkspawn along the border several years back during the Blight. Granted, he immediately passed out after casting it, but the immense skill and magical power to cast one of the hardest glyphs at that scale marked Alim out from the rest of Clan Surana. Ellana fears what Alim has in store for Cassandra and the rest of her forces. 

Whatever it is, it won’t be pretty.

 

* * *

 

Alim and Neria leave the tent first, leaving Mahanon alone with his sister. The minute the tent flap swings shut, Ellana swings her legs off the cot and stumbles towards him with wide, fearful eyes. At first, Mahanon freezes. He hasn’t seen his sister look like that in a long time. She clutches his shoulders for support, and her fingernails manage to dig in deep through his blouse to leave behind red crescent-moon marks on his skin underneath. 

“You cannot let Alim kill them all,” she whispers. Her words are all furious breath and determination, laced together with a kind of hope he thought Ellana lost a long time ago. 

Mahanon hisses back, “What do you expect me to do about it? Refuse to cooperate with him? At best, I will be called a lunatic. At worst, I will be branded  _ harellan _ and that won’t help us in any way, shape or form.”

Ellana looks at him with sheer disbelief, and her breath leaves her in one jerky gasp. “Do that, and you endanger the epitome of what we are trying to do,” she warns. 

Mahanon sinks back against his chair, trying to avoid Ellana’s dolorous gaze. “And what are we trying to do?” he finally asks. “Peace. You want peace. So do the rest of the Scions and the Dales. But what kind and at what cost?” Ellana opens her mouth to say something, but Mahanon holds up a hand to stop her. “I have said this before, and I will say it again,” he tells her. “I will support you because you are my sister, but if you were anyone else, I would not place my favor in your odds.” He gestures to the tent flap and says, “Your new Chantry friend is only one person out of many. Look at the people they have named Champion. A Chantry sister who ordered the kidnapping and brainwashing of our nation’s children as a more ‘humane’ option. A nobleman who would rather watch us die than take us as prisoners of war. A knight who does not have the courage to name these kinds of acts as war crimes.”

“I have both the Left and Right Hands in agreement with me,” Ellana says, still in the barest of whispers. Her eyes are still brighter than a freshly sharpened knife as she speaks, and Mahanon winces. She continues, “We can organize a diplomatic meeting and settle this grand misunderstanding.”

Mahanon watches his sister carefully, and he shuts his eyes. He does not speak another word, but deep inside the valves of his heart, he fears his sister is trodding down the same rusted path as Elandrin once did at the very start of this March. His stone of farspeech buzzes in his pocket, and he glances down. Ellana follows his gaze, and she murmurs, “I suppose you have a meeting to go to.”

Mahanon slips a hand into his pocket to check the stone and flips it upside down. There’s a blinking pattern and color that’s undeniably from Alim. He flips back and activates it before asking, “Yes?” 

“We should begin,” Alim’s voice responds from the stone. That’s the only thing he says before he hangs up. Ellana’s shoulders start to shake with silent laughter, and she waves towards the tent flap. 

Mahanon starts to take his leave, but just before he steps out, he gives one last, lingering look towards his sister. Her shoulders are slumped, her back curved downwards as she stares at her ruined hand and the scar spanning the width of her palm. The last thing Mahanon sees is his sister curling that hand into a tight fist before he leaves the tent.

He makes his way through the camp to where Alim has set up a small pavilion-esque tent with the fabric stretched high and taut for a roof and a table folded out with a map pinned on top. Alim’s in the process of setting out markers, and when Mahanon gets closer, he sees that it’s a map of Adahlennar and the outskirts. There’s a field marked as the one where the shemlen first sprung their magical traps on them. Alim has already sketched out a series of runes on the map in fine graphite. The High Commander looks up when Mahanon approaches and says without preamble, “I can lead the first legion forward.” 

“What,” Mahanon says dryly. “Have you already drafted out an entire tactical plan without me?” 

Alim nods and taps his pencil on the map. “The shemlen want to play with magic,” he says. “We can use that to our advantage. If I lead a phalanx forward, I can twist their own traps to work for us instead of them and trap them all in a series of glyphs.” 

Mahanon’s eyes gleam, and he steps over to look at the map. Creators forgive him, but Mahanon’s always liked this part of the battle. Careful planning, testing different possibilities, seeing where the battle will converge and shifting to the crux of it all to be in their favor. It’s one of the reasons why he likes playing games like chess, especially with someone like Alim or Ariane. Granted, he’s always felt a touch guilty about it. War is not a game, and this is not another chessboard. They are dealing with real people and real weapons instead of pawns and paying for each move with life after life after life. 

Mahanon taps the edge of the map and says, “If you are going to trap them all into glyphs, then I could lead the rest of the troops into flanking positions. Once the traps are sprung, we can descend down on both sides and attack before the shemlen can react and get themselves free of the traps.” 

Alim nods and says, “Excellent.” 

Mahanon’s thoughts race, honing in on the idea and thinking about the terrain that he has to work with. He’s trained in the dark forests and fields of Tirera’vun when the burning sun went down. He knows how to work with darkness, how to use grass to muffle steps, how to manipulate the world to his advantage. The outskirts of Adahlennar that they are in have a series of fields interspersed with young forests filled with saplings barely out of the ground. The first battle was in a field, but the surrounding areas are forested. Mahanon can hide his archers and his rogues in the treeline while Alim’s mages face the front. Mages pose a problem though that the opposite side knows how to deal with. “We have to take out the templars though. We cannot risk having your work be undone,” Mahanon adds. “I have a number of talented archers. Get your mages to mark the templars out, perhaps a different color of the rune you are planning to use,  and we will shoot them down.” 

He pauses after he speaks and remembers what he promised to his sister. But now, it’s too late. Alim’s already nodding with a small smile around the corners of his lips. He and Alim work well together, and frankly, Mahanon prefers working with him over someone like Darrian of Clan Tabris or Nesiari of Clan Alerion despite Alim’s peculiar habits. They have similar mindsets, and whatever they come up, they tend to agree on quickly rather than devolving into bickering over it. Still, he tries, “But Alim, do you think it is a possibility to resolve the western front in a peaceful manner rather than this?” 

Alim turns his flat eyes towards Mahanon and regards him carefully as he replies, “You mentioned this before.” 

“I did,” Mahanon confirms. “And I would still like to treat a more peaceful option as a possibility.” The same familiar guilt pricks at his heart, and he thinks about a chessboard, about pawns and pieces and lives stacked up on either side. With that, he says, “After all, we are dealing with lives. This is not a game.”

“And that is why we must attack,” Alim tells him. The Scion is normally the slowest, most leisurely elf Mahanon’s ever met, but his voice quickens from slow treacle to short, mincing words that drip out with a sharper intensity. Alim flattens his hand over the city of Adahlennar and says, “The Chantry will not stop until their March is done. This is what the Keepers have declared in return, and this is what we were appointed to do. I, for one, will follow their orders and the laws of our nation in order to protect it. I asked you once before, Mahanon of Clan Lavellan. Are you willing to be branded  _ harellan _ and risk the lives of our people for this gamble?”

Once again, Mahanon finds himself face to face with the question that he’s been asking himself too. He knows what he promised to his sister. He just doesn’t know if it’s worth the risk. He has paid too much to this war, and he doesn’t want to pay his sister for the price of peace. He refuses to be another Siona for another Elandrin in the grand spoke of war that wheels on and on and on, but if he has to save Ellana from herself, he will. His blood chills with the thought of Ellana’s death, and in truth, she came close to that: bleeding out on the battlefield and coming out with scars that marked the proof of her almost-death. That thought makes him shudder, and he silently apologizes to Ellana in his mind as he answers, “No.”

 

* * *

 

“What?” Samson sputters. “I’m sorry, what did you just say, your Worship?”

Lieutenant General Cullen almost chokes but recovers enough to snap out, “Forgive me, your Worship, but that is an option that is unacceptable. We are fighting a war here, and retreating means losing the western front!” 

Cassandra inhales deeply before she repeats, “I said that we should retreat from the western front. Abandon it. Let it be still.” 

“For what reason?” Evangeline asks now. Unlike the others, she’s remained quiet and still. Her eyes, however, track Cassandra with a deadly intensity. “We’ve spent so much time here, and we’re making headway with the new mage tactic. We’ve even received new reinforcements and mercenaries.”

Cassandra reaches over to tap Val Royeaux on the map, painted in gilt and dark ink. “We lost Montsimmard to the elves, and the elves have a way of moving quickly through their country that we haven’t managed to replicate yet,” she says, trying to keep her voice flat and impartial. “Now that they’ve taken Montsimmard, they’re likely to focus on Val Royeaux.” 

“That’s a good point,” Evangeline muses. “But are you willing to pay the western front for it?" 

_ Of course, _ Cassandra thinks. She doesn’t want to face Ellana on the battlefield. She tries to mentally rationalize it as endangering the very thing that she is working towards: peace. Still, she knows that she doesn’t want to kill Ellana. Her wry smile, the twinkle in her eye, the keen way she lays out her perspective on things with a simple clarity, and most importantly, the way she takes the time to see the war from Cassandra’s perspective. If anything, she’d rather have another conversation with Ellana rather than a fight. 

Cassandra looks up from the map and says, “If we lose Val Royeaux, we lose everything.”

“But we can’t just give up on the west,” Cullen blurts out. There’s a kind of desperation in his voice and etched in the lines of his face that make Cassandra pause. His knuckles are white as he grips onto the edge of the table, and a few markers tip over on the map. That lets Cassandra know that he’s shaking, and she considers him again. He takes in a deep breath before he asks, “Permission to speak, your Worship?”

“Not that permission has ever stopped you from saying your opinion,” Samson mutters. 

Evangeline shoots Samson a baleful glare while Cassandra nods. Cullen steadies himself before he says tightly, “Pulling back from the west will signal the Dales that we’re weakening, that we’re losing our resolve. If we focus on Val Royeaux, then the elves will focus there as well. The western front has been the only thing keeping the elves scattered and far apart. We can’t afford to give up on the west.”

“He makes a good point,” Samson admits. He reaches over and taps the map right over Adahlennar. “We weren’t really going after the archives anyways,” he says. “No one in the Chantry really gives a shit about that. It’s only the elves that treat it with such value, and it’s why they’re willing to fight along the front.”

Evangeline purses her lips and says, “I can see your point, Lieutenant General, but the Right Hand is correct. Lose Val Royeaux, and we lose everything. It is simply up to us to decide which gamble we are willing to take: the west or the east.” She inclines her head towards Cassandra and says, “I leave my decision at the Right Hand’s discretion. I will follow your lead.”

Samson looks distinctly torn, and he looks down, not at the map, but at his own hands. “What a gamble, huh,” he mutters. “Like playing Diamondback but with lives instead of chips or gold or whatever else you can get your hands on at the tavern. Damn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation, innit?”

Cullen doesn’t look convinced, but he subsides and stays quiet. 

In fact, there’s a silence that hangs far too heavily in the air for Cassandra’s liking, but she prepares to announce the formal withdrawal of Chantry forces from the western front. Just as she opens her mouth to speak, she feels the words die off her tongue when she hears a loud, piercing scream shoot through the middle of the night. Then, the drums of war start to pound through, echoing the same rhythm that starts up in Cassandra’s heart.

 

* * *

 

Ellana’s halfway through writing a letter to Cassandra. Ink stains some of her fingers, but she makes sure to make each line and curve of the symbols comprising the cipher as clear as possible for Cassandra’s benefit. But as she writes, she hears the snap of thunder rolling low over the horizon and the electric taste of magic in the air.  Ellana freezes, mid-sentence, and then, she runs out to the tent, heedless of her scabbed injuries and the chair she knocks over in her haste. She stands, chest heaving with too much breath, outside her tent and stares at the night horizon that’s beginning to light up with the exact shade of Alim’s magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this on my phone during a series of train and subway rides over the past month, so there might be a few mistakes that i haven't been able to catch. autocorrect is an absolute monster smh
> 
> let me know what your thoughts were in the comments below! i'd love to hear them <3


	6. Chapter 6

Now, Hawke’s never been one to dwell on the negative. If she did that, she’d probably drown in all the shit that swelled up whenever things went belly-up and sideways. But this? This seems like a pretty shitty situation that merits — as Varric calls it and something that Anders excels at — a good brooding over. 

One. She’s an apostate in an army organized by the Chantry. That seems rather antithetical to her entire existence, but if they’re going to pay her to cast magic, then so be it. It doesn’t stop her from feeling constantly on edge though. 

Two. She’s still working off the “destabilized Commander Meredith Stannard’s entire legion” incident as well as bearing the misnomer of Champion. Let it never be said that Hawke never pays off her debts, but damned if she isn’t frustrated over a situation like this. 

Three. She’s being paid to fight a battle that isn’t really hers, and that shouldn’t be a surprise to her. It’s what she’s been doing for too many years, but this time, she gets a deep, sinking feeling about it all. It’s the same feeling she got when they escaped from the rickety little town of Lothering and the same feeling she got in the Deep Roads and the same feeling she got in the streets of Kirkwall, trailing after blood and body parts. By this point, Hawke’s learned to trust her gut, and even if some of the times, it’s just plain indigestion, this time is something entirely different. 

And it’s not good. 

She’s in the middle of gambling with her smallclothes and other accoutrements she’s managed to pick up on her ambling way down to the western front. Hawke’s on the losing end though, and it looks like Isabela is about to sweep up the entire pile. Isabela probably cheated, but that’s not a surprise to anyone anymore. 

Isabela flashes her cards with triumph, and sure enough, it’s a winning hand. Hawke’s about to throw in her cards and toss her spare smallclothes over to Isabela when she feels something prickle across her neck. She glances back, and in the depths of the darkness, she can’t see for shit beyond what the campfire illuminates. “Cough it up, Hawke,” Varric laughs. “You owe Rivaini here a pair.”

“Aw, sweetness, you know I’ll use it well,” Isabela croons. There’s a twinkle in her eye, and she leans over to Hawke, hands on Hawke’s shoulder for support and warm, brown skin pressing against Hawke in a teasing manner. Standard Isabela, really. 

Aveline rolls her eyes and slides a pack of tea over to Isabela’s growing pile of winnings. “It’ll see more use being taken off than anything else,” she says with a slight snort. Her voice is dry and flat as she says the curt words. There’s a fond look in her eyes that contradict her voice though. 

Everything is the way that it normally is: banter and stale ale and words shared between people like treasures and gems untold. By this point, Hawke’s learned to value people more than a petty coin. At the end of it all, people are the ones to stick with you rather than cold, soulless gold, and after the Big-Bad-We-Shall-Never-Speak-Of-This-Again Incident in the Deep Roads, Hawke’s taken care to ingrain that thought deep in the grooves of her heart. Even then though, there’s that strange prickle on her neck and the sharp twist in her stomach that either means she ate spoilt bread or that something terrible is coming her way. 

Hawke wishes it was spoilt bread more than anything else, but somehow, she doesn’t think that’s the case anymore. 

“Hey, Anders,” she says abruptly. “Do you feel something? Something off?” She waggles her fingers and asks, “What do your magical spirit senses see? Barring that, Grey Warden senses? Anything tingling in that noggin of yours?” As the only other mage in their motley group, she figures that he’s the one to ask first. 

“Don’t say it so loudly,” Anders replies, mouth twisting into a half-smile, half-frown. “You don’t need to advertise that to the entire encampment. But now that you mention it…” He trails off and shuts his eyes. Hawke can feel the tendrils of his magic reach out into the air, probing at the latent threads of mana already pre-existing in the area. 

It’s one of the things that always shakes Hawke about the Dales. The entire area is so entrenched in magic, and with the constant, liberal use of it by the Dalish, the latent magic in the air is so much more electric and _alive_ than anything Hawke’s ever felt. Now, Hawke wonders if it’s the Dalish air instead of bad bread. It still doesn’t offer up a satisfying explanation for her likings though. 

Now, Hawke turns to the rest of the group and asks, “What about you lot? Strange wind, weird sensation on the marks, some kind of ache in your funny bone? Anything whispering into your ear?” Hawke hesitates and then says, “Well, maybe not the whispering. The whispering might be a demon, and in that case, I’m more inclined to ignore it, you know?”

Everyone else exchanges a strange look, but most shake their heads. Sebastian cocks his head and asks, “Are you sure you just haven’t drank too much?”

Hawke shakes her head and stretches out a hand in the air. She flexes her fingers and watches as her magic starts to gather in the palm of her open hand, gathering and spiraling in the familiar color of her magic and the bright skies above the Fereldan fields. But then, the color shifts a little bit. It’s not the silver-blue of Anders’s magic nor the simple white of Circle-trained mages, but rather, a thick smoke-colored grey. 

“You’re right,” Anders says with a touch of bemusement. “Something is there that shouldn’t be.” 

Hawke reaches for her own weapon with a lightning speed, and her hands clench over the magic-warmed wood of her staff. Her fingers fit perfectly in the places she’s worn into the Fereldan wood, and she curls her hand tight until her knuckles turn white. Everyone follows suit, and alarm replaces the former levity of the game. Now, they have to play a different game, but instead of playing hands in Wicked Grace, they’re nothing more than paid pawns in the Great Game of the Divine. 

Hawke — foolhardy, kind-hearted idiot that she is — is the first one in the camp to scream bloody murder about an attack. At first, the other soldiers and templars regard her with confusion, but then, a soldier with a Free Marcher accent calls out, “Wait, that’s the Champion! Follow her! Follow her!”

The soldier starts following Hawke with a spear in hand. When he gets close, Hawke sees the youth in his eyes, still green in experience and wide with adrenaline-fueled excitement. This soldier, no, _boy_ has no idea what a dirty chore war is. Not yet. Still, he follows after Hawke and helps rally the other men, and he’s out like a hare on the field that separates the Chantry forces from the elves. 

Sure enough, across the edge of the field, the unnatural glow of magelight bobs up and down to illuminate the approaching phalanx of Dalish soldiers. They move swiftly and silently, and aside from the bobbing light, there is no other indication of their approach. Hawke can’t even hear the trumpets of the halla that they use for their cavalry nor the sharp call of the horns that their commanders use to guide the troops.

“Get the mages, get the mages!” someone bellows. “Set the traps up, make them pay!”

The battle-mages in the camp look terrified, and Hawke doesn’t blame them. They’re the fresh recruits after the first regiment’s worth of mages perished in that first fight. Even though every mage died on that first battle, the cost to the Dalish was the highest it ever was on the western front. Divine Renata personally selected the next wave of mages to die on the front, and so, Hawke watches them with bitter, angry eyes as they march forward, shielded by the templars. Needless death, stupidly pathetically _needless_ death. 

Hawke waits along the wings with the rest of her group. There are pockets of hired mercenaries ringing the main force of templars and soldiers, designed to cause the most chaos within the enemy as possible. Hawke knows that there’s one group that likes to chuck potions at the enemy to blind them. She’s pretty sure that they’ve got bottled tar among their stocks as well. There’s another mercenary group led by a Qunari that charges in, full-force and axes swinging. As for Hawke, she prefers the method that causes the most chaos as possible. Usually, that’s her lobbing as many fireballs as she can at the enemy to make cover for her friends to dart in and out as they please. Aveline keeps Hawke and Anders from getting skewered by the pointy end of a sword, and Anders keeps them all healed up. It’s worked for a long time, and it gets them paid and fed. But as she stares at the silent advance of the Dalish, she feels danger prickling high on the air.

The mages lift their staffs up in unison, and with a ripple, the entire space between the elves and the Chantry forces grows taut with the force of the magic that the mages are pulling from the Fade. Hawke can feel the Veil strain against it, and she unconsciously holds her breath. The mages swing their staffs down, and now, the grass glows white-hot with the magic threading over the ground, sinking deep into the loam and roots of the grass.

Now, the templars charge without inhibition, blades up and ready to fight. Hawke raises her staff to fire the first fireball, but then, she sees something out of the corner of her eye. The white lines of the traps start to turn an acrid darker color along the edges before they sizzle up. She can see the soldier boy, the one too young for it all, charge with a loud yell. The sound of his voice is what gets Hawke’s attention actually. She holds her fire with a tense grip, blazing around her fingertips and the tip of her bladed staff, and watches with abject horror as the lines of white start to shrivel and curl up around the ankles of the soldier boy. Instead of white, the magic starts to smoke and burn, turning grey against the light of the magefire trapped in Hawke’s hand. The soldier boy pauses in his sprinting, almost falling over from the complete stop in his momentum. Mist leaks out of the trap and sears into his skin. Hawke’s hand shakes, and her friends pause just before they surge forward into the fray as well. 

“Kitten, something wrong?” Isabela’s low voice asks, close to her. 

There’s a lurch in Hawke’s stomach as she watches the magical lines across the field start to smoke in the same way, and now, she _knows_ that it’s not bad bread or stale ale in a bout of indigestion or whatever else she manages to create for an excuse. She turns back to face Isabela, eyes wide, and whispers, “It’s all a trap.” 

 

* * *

 

If anything, Cassandra feels betrayed. 

The world around her is alight with battle-fury, and she can still remember the complete look that blatantly said “I told you so” on Rutherford’s face. The same stinging sentiment lodges in her heart, and she wonders if this was all just some grand ploy to knock her off her guard. After all, Leliana said to be careful of the Lavellans out of all the Scions of the Dales. Even so, she uses the flat of her blade and her shield to knock her foes away. Something keeps her from spilling Dalish blood across the battlefield again. Perhaps it’s the undying spark of hope that still flickers in the corners of her weary heart. 

But Cassandra smells smoke that’s acrid on her tongue, and it stings and burns with a scent unlike wood or dry grass. This is the pure scent of magical fire: clean and crisp in some ways and utterly unnatural in others. It shakes her out of her thoughts and makes her pause for a brief second. 

Then, she hears the screams. 

Her Seeker senses jangle against the ends, jerking against a foreign magic that takes over the familiar magic of the Chantry mages. It’s thoroughly Dalish, that’s for sure. The texture of it, the way it slips and slides along the warp and weft of the Veil, and the curl along the shafted edges of the spells are all classically Dalish. It’s nothing like Ellana’s magic, and the stab of betrayal almost lessens. Cassandra tightens her grip on the feeling though and expands her senses outward to understand what’s going on. 

There, in front of her, is an elvhen figure dressed in the regalia of the Scions behind the lines of soldiers that advance first. However, it’s too tall to be Ellana, and when Cassandra squints her eyes, she can barely see a face illuminated by magelight. He extends one hand outward, swathed in the same grey that starts to overtake the white lines on the field, and with one gesture from his outstretched hand, he tears through the traps and turns them in on themselves. Cassandra can feel it against her senses like a sharp twist, almost like the tides reversing in their path. The rest of the elves lift their hands, silent and wordless in the most terrifying of ways, and repeat the same gesture. What results is an irrepressible force that crashes down on her and the rest of her troops.

Cassandra chokes against the foreign magic that now permeates the air, and she jerks her head back to survey her troops. Some are caught in the traps meant for the elves, and smoke sinks through their armor and makes them scream in shrill, high-pitched sounds that pierce Cassandra’s ears. The mages, however, are trapped in a sea of lavender smoke. When they try to swat it out with gusts of wind and blasts of ice, they dissipate the smoke but reveal sharp lines inscribed on their bodies in the same purple hue. 

She sees Cullen try to jerk one mage out of the trap. He manages to push one mage out completely, but he gets lashed by the trap instead and falls to the ground, swathed in the same purple mist as the others. 

The wind whistles against her ears, but the sound is too keen for a natural breeze. Cassandra automatically jerks her shield up as the first volley of arrows rain down on them, bitter-quick like the winter winds and freshly sharpened against the whetstone of war. A few arrows lodge themselves in her shield, and Cassandra watches as the arrows fly towards the mages. _They’re targeting the mages,_ Cassandra thinks with a sudden, ragged jerk of alarm. She wheels around to support a mage that stumbles and almost falls against her. She keeps the mage up, but her gaze is now solely directed on the High Commander now approaching with an even gait. 

She knows him now, knows his reputation that spans across the Dales and spills over to the Orlesian Empire. Leliana keeps careful dossiers on them all, and Cassandra tries her damn best to remember them. Ellana of Clan Lavellan may be the Diplomat, the Fade-winged Soldier with the Sword of Veilfire, but this is someone entirely different. Cassandra wracks her memory for the right one. There’s the Archer that uses fire and ice for the fletching on his arrows and the Blade that sinks deep into the shadows of the cities on infiltration missions. 

But the foe she faces now? It can be no one other than Alim of Clan Surana, the Glyph-Crafter.

Cassandra knows that the man holds an incredible talent over the magical art of glyphs and runes. Even the dwarves welcome him among their citadels for joint research on rune-making and shielding. A fair number of Chantry squadrons were downed on the borders thanks to the traps laid by Surana and his mages, and of course, no one can forget the wild rumor from the Blight, speaking of a glyph that encased an entire horde’s worth of darkspawn and sent a death hex rattling through their bones. Leliana has him marked down as a reticent, almost impassive, foe out of the High Commanders, but he is anything but weaker than the other Scions. Cassandra’s never had the misfortune to come across him in battle until now. If anything, he’s one to watch out for because his magic has a way of wearing down your defenses until there is nothing left but the barest sliver of life clinging to your bones. He must have been one of the major generals at the siege of Montsimmard, and she has no idea how he got to Adahlennar so fast. 

She surges forward, pushing the wounded mage behind her, and keeps her shield up. With the flat of her blade, she swings down and cracks the metal of her sword across the skull of an elvhen soldier. Then, she swings around with the edge of her shield to knock another one over. She has to clear a path to the High Commander and knock him out to get the most of her troops out of this alive.

Surana only lifts his hand, and Cassandra can feel the magic in the air stretch and bend. The taste of smoke grows heavier in the air, and grey magic sinks deep into the ground. Cassandra swears under her breath, low and violent, as she throws herself to the side just in time to avoid a glyph. They’re inscribed in ways that she’s not familiar with. Dalish characters, she supposes, instead of the Tevinter-style circles that their mages are practiced with. Cassandra ends up taking a jagged, zig-zag path to avoid the worst of the traps, and the rest of her soldiers follow suit.

She gets closer and closer to the High Commander, inflicting as little wounds as she can. Cassandra hates herself for that. By all rights, she should be reacting with the same amount of fury. Betrayal still burns deep in the marrow of her bones, but she can’t let go of that feeble, fluttering hope that beats its wings in the branches of her veins and heart. She’s so _close,_ but then, she takes a single step forward only to feel numbness. Cassandra looks down with horror to see that a glyph glows grey beneath her feet. Numbness starts spreading up from her ankles to her legs, and soon, Cassandra knows that she’ll be completely immobile.

The High Commander saunters over to her, almost lazily, and tosses a ball of grey magic in his hand. He looks like he’s out for a stroll instead of a battle, and Cassandra grits her teeth against the numbness and struggles to get out. Now, the numbness is up to her hips. She glances back and sees more arrows rain down on her troops. In the distant treeline, there are lines and lines of archers. Combined with the force battering them from the front, it’s overwhelming. When did the elves gain more reinforcements? If anything, Cassandra’s scouts should have tracked down the arrival of more elves. Curse their silent movement, curse their impossibly fast methods of transportation and communication, curse this very battle and war tearing her world apart.

Cassandra looks forward and sees that Surana’s close enough for her to make out the features of his face. Tawny brown skin, dark hair pulled back in a braid, and a high, almost crooked, nose. The thing that alarms Cassandra the most is how Surana’s expression doesn’t change as he looks out at the field and the battle dripping red and starting to stench of fear. It only remains impassive and still. His gaze lands on Cassandra, and he purses his lips slightly before he twists his hands towards the left. Traces of fire start to flicker at the edges of his palm, and Cassandra can feel the fire starting to build in the trap surrounding her. 

There’s no other choice left for her. She has to answer violence with violence. Cassandra sinks her Seeker senses deep into the world around her and finds both lyrium and magic readily available in the bodies around her. She jerks them all towards her with the last of her strength and uses her blade to guide it before the paralysis grips her entire body. She stabs her sword down, and the magic follows into a searing smite that blinds all the mages nearby. It shatters the glyph, and Cassandra tears out of the glyph with teeth bared.

She is not a Seeker nor is she the Right Hand of the Divine for no reason. She raises her sword and shield with all the wrath of heaven at her hand.

 

* * *

 

It’s a damn cock-up, that’s what it is. 

Hawke feels like she’s playing some kind of perverse game of hopscotch on the battlefield, and she leaps around and over the lines of grey magic with her arms wide and flailing to try and keep her balance. Isabela and Varric both move in a way that makes it seem so damn easy, and Sebastian has the luxury of having an even longer range than Hawke with his bow. At least Aveline and she are both bumbling along. Anders has gone full Justice in the background, and Hawke makes a note to make a toast about that some time in the future. 

If they’ll even live to see a future.

Hawke shakes her head, trying to focus on the battle ahead. She has enough on her plate without worrying about the negatives. She swings her staff around to clock an elf in the face and twists the other end around to stab an elf coming up behind her. At this point, she cares less about chaos and more about getting people out of the damn traps. If she overloads the magic laced inside the lines of the glyph, she can make a space large enough to pull a person out if she’s fast enough. 

“Krem!” she shouts when she spots a familiar helmet. 

Krem doesn’t turn around immediately, but she yells, “We’re outnumbered and outmatched! We have to get out of here. Get as many of your people out as you can!”

“Leaving so soon, Hawke?” Krem manages to shout back. He ducks as another arrow soars through the night air before popping back up. “That’s quitter talk, Champion.”

“It’s not quitter talk if it’s saving people, you dunce,” Hawke retorts. She sends a cone of cold towards a few elves that try to take advantage of Krem’s momentary distraction. “Let that Bull know as well!”

She doesn’t wait for Krem’s reply before she leaves. She rarely does, actually. It’s her way of always having the last word, even in the technicalities of the term. Putting that aside, Hawke charges forward again, leaping and hopping like a fool who ripped her knickers. If anything, she’s hanging on a measly seam’s worth of life. Hawke chucks another fireball into the fray for good measure before she spots a plume of purple mist. 

Isabela joins her side to help, and as Hawke twirls her staff, Isabela pants out, “You know, dying is very, _very_ bad for my morale. Actually, that goes for anyone. Good call, Hawke.” 

“Chug a potion, Captain,” Hawke tosses back. “We’re getting as many people out of this as we can, even if we’re turning tail and making a run for it.” 

“And they say drinking never solves anything. Curse your kind heart, Hawke,” Isabela mutters as she unstoppers a potion bottle. Hawke watches her back and sprays out a corona of ice from her staff to keep the elves off her. Isabela wipes her lips with the back of her hand before she grabs a new dagger from her belt and slides it neatly between the rib-rungs of an elf who’s been bashed by Aveline nearby. “Thanks, big girl,” she calls out.

“Focus on the battle, tart,” Aveline replies as she braces herself against the battering blow of a Dalish soldier. She twists her body to the side to throw the soldier to the ground before angling herself in a different direction to protect Isabela better.

Hawke elbows her way through, scattering her magic in the air. Compared to the sleek and graceful efficiency of the elves, Hawke’s magic is more like brambles and nettles caught between the threads, entangling spells and bursting in small flickers of flame. When she gets there, she finds Cullen Stanton Rutherford instead of a mage. She almost sputters at the sight. The only people in the purple traps were mages from what she saw, so she has absolutely no idea how Cullen managed to stumble his way into one.

There are several arrows lodged in places of his armor like his pauldrons and breastplate, but it looks like minor damage. His heavy armor seems to have protected him from the worst of it. Cullen doesn’t recognize her though, and he’s blubbering about something involving Ferelden, demons and that old codger, Meredith Stannard. Hawke tests the edges of the purple mist, and it seems like it’s a magical marker, designed to highlight certain targets out of the crowd, mixed with some kind of elvhen glyph for inducing waking nightmares. Hawke digs her magic deep in to make a right mess of it all, but it makes Cullen cry out in pain. “Bloody hell,” she mutters. Hawke looks up and sees the Dalish soldiers surge towards them despite Aveline and Fenris’s best efforts to fend them off. Varric’s running out of crossbolts for Bianca, and Isabela’s wheezing from the rising smoke that billows off the glyph lines. Anders is already on the ground, trying to get a wounded Chantry soldier back on his feet, but Justice is making his body glow too bright and shiver. If anything, this will likely be the last person she can save from a trap before she’s forced to retreat. Now, Cullen’s never been much of a friend, but Hawke’s not going to abandon him to the elves now. She’s not that cruel. “Last person!” she calls out. 

“You and your bleeding heart, Hawke!” Varric shouts back before he reloads Bianca. “If you’re gonna retreat, run while you can instead of stopping!”

Hawke starts pouring magic, winter-wild and summer-hot, into the lines of the trap. Ice and fire start cracking through and dissipating the mist, and Hawke heaves her hands up to break the first bonds off of Cullen. “Listen,” she says through gritted teeth. “You’ve got to snap out of it, you big lout. Let’s _go.”_

“Wh—” Cullen blearily says. There’s still a tear slipping out the corner of his eye, and he whimpers, “Amell, Amell, I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m Hawke,” she testily replies. “You know, the one who stole your tea and biscuits from your chest all the time in Stannard’s division. Amell’s my mother’s maiden name, you absolute nutter.” She hoists the magic up even higher to create a space for Cullen to crawl out and snaps, “We have to go, Cullen.”

He’s not moving, and instead, he starts shaking even more at the mention of Meredith’s name. Damn it all. Hawke’s arms are starting to burn with the effort of keeping the trap open for Cullen to escape, and the elves keep pouring out of the treeline to join the fight. As lucky as Hawke tends to be, this is something that she knows she can’t win for sure. Hawke jerks her head around to search for the nearest person and shouts, “Varric, Isabela! Get Anders to safety _now._ I want Aveline and Sebastian watching their backs. Now!”

“What about you?” Isabela snaps.

Hawke glances back at Cullen and hisses out a few choice swears in the thickest Fereldan burr she’s used all day. In a split second, she makes a decision and reaches a hand into the trap to snatch Cullen’s hand. And she yanks _hard._ Cullen even yelps a little bit. In response, Hawke grits her teeth and pulls him even harder. She’s spent her childhood plowing and hoeing fields in the wide fields of Ferelden, or as the Orlesians liked to call it, wild Alamarri territory. The sod there was thick, and she hasn’t lost any of that muscle from those days in her new line of work. So, Hawke pulls and pulls until she manages to get Cullen hauled out of the miserable trap that’s now veritably shaking with the amount of fire and ice she’s poured into the gutters of the magical lines. 

Now that Cullen’s free, he blinks hard, and the lucidity returns to his eyes. “What—“ he manages to say. His gaze focuses on Hawke, and he sputters, “You!”

“Yes, me,” Hawke informs him. “The same old me that stole your biscuits and the same me that yanked you out of the trap. You were going a bit loopy in there, you know. Like, off your rocker, screaming and crying, almost pissing your pants kind of loopy.” She flaps her free hand over to the battlefield that’s steadily tipping in favor of the Dalish and says, “Now, if you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a retreat.”

“But your hand,” Cullen says. 

Hawke blinks at him and says, “Excuse me?”

Then, she hears Aveline’s sharp, steady voice scream, “Hawke!” 

Now, Hawke is no stranger to Aveline bellowing her name. There’s a rather wide variety in Aveline’s repertoire of tones and pitches when she says Hawke’s name. Most of them are twisted through with exasperation and frustration while some are fond and sweet. Right now, Aveline’s voice is nothing but sheer desperation. 

Hawke looks down at the hand she used to pull Cullen out with and finds that it’s wrapped over and over with lines of magic, tangling themselves up with her own magic. Cullen’s bonds were almost laughably easy to tease apart compared to the other traps on regular soldiers, and they slipped and slid on the outer edges of him. Maybe that was because he’s a Templar because right now, the purple mist is growing, and the lines of the glyph are sinking themselves deep into Hawke’s magical aura and tangling themselves up worse than nettles and thistles after a Fereldan spring. She tries to tear away from the trap, but it only makes it worse. 

Aveline comes charging back towards her, knocking people out of the way by bludgeoning them with her shield. Likewise, Sebastian and Varric are shooting arrows to help clear a path towards Hawke. She can barely see Isabela and Anders trying to fend off others coming closer to their position, but it’s clear that they’re struggling. a sinking feeling starts to knot itself up in her stomach — like the time at the camp but even worse — and Hawke realizes that there is no way out of this. 

“Leave,” Hawke says roughly. Then, she shouts even louder, “Leave!”

“Now isn’t the time for heroics, Hawke!” Cullen snaps back, but his voice is thin and hoarse after screaming for so long. 

Hawke reaches out with her free hand before the trap consumes her whole and shoves Cullen away from her. “Run. Retreat and live to drink another bottle of shitty, watered-down whiskey for me,” she says thickly. “And tell my friends—“ Her voice cracks now, and the magic starts to stiffen around her. “Tell then that they’re all bloody wonderful idiots, blundering and daft in all the brilliant ways,” she hoarsely says. “No better band of merry misfits than them.”

Cullen nods — the barest bit of it, almost too small — and Hawke exhales with a bitter smile. The lavender mist hides Cullen completely now, and she sees something else entirely. The scent comes to her memory first: the festering, death-heavy scent of darkspawn Taint. “Ah,” she says, voice small and reedy. “We’re taking a trip down memory lane, aren’t we? What a surprise. It isn’t even my birthday.”

 

* * *

 

Ever since Ellana was young, she’s always been good at reaching across the Veil. Whenever she reached out with her hands to cast spells, her fingers slipped past the thin-yet-thick Veil with smooth, butter-like ease to curl around the teeming magic in that elusive, parallel country of the Fade. Fade steps came easily to her, and the Keepers quickly shuttled her off to a conclave of Arcane Warriors in Tirera’vun for several seasons. It’s one of the reasons why she chooses to wield a spirit blade in battle rather than anything else.

Ellana silently offers up a word of thanks to her old mentors as she leaps through the physical space of reality by slipping in and out of the world with Fade steps. It’s almost like threading a needle, but her focus is honed in with a deadly accuracy. She can barely feel the weight of her armor as she sinks in and plunges out of the Fade, like waves, like water, like wind. The world bends to her will, and she tracks down the tell-tale curl of smoke through the Fade like the wolfhounds of the Dales. Alim’s always had that color of magic for as long as Ellana can remember, and now, he has threads criss-crossing the entirety of this section of the Fade. Ellana knows the Veil better though, and she dives right through the cords of his magic, unnoticed and silent.

She lands on the battlefield, and her lungs constrict with the sudden tightness of the air. Reality presses too harshly down on her after stepping too many times through the Fade, and she chokes on the air, blood-tang and iron-clang and all. Ellana lifts her head, heaving against the effort to readjust to the world, and finds absolute devastation in front of her. It’s like the flip side of the last battle here. Instead of her soldiers burning to ashes in concentric circles along the grass, the field has lines of grey stretched over it and coating soldiers over with deadly fog. Ellana lets out a short bark of bitter-aching laughter when she sees it. Ironic. But Alim always loved irony.

She shakes her head and shuts her eyes to find the epicenter of it all. It’s hard to track with all the divine smites from the templars and the bursts of magic from Alim’s retinue, but there’s no denying the column of grey acting as the linchpin to everything she senses. Ellana centers her direction on that column alone and takes a single leap into the fray. The Veil whistles around her, but against the pattern of Alim’s glyphs, she slips through more easily than she expected. 

Ellana lands right behind Alim and narrowly misses a blast of lyrium-fueled fury. The light reeks of Chantry, through and through. She flattens herself against the ground as her vision readjusts itself. When it does, she almost cries out with fear. 

Cassandra’s trapped, lines of grey circling around her ankles and wrists. She’s tearing them off with every blow though, and she’s surrounded by a halo of light that pulls at the people nearby her and siphons the magic off them. From several templar corpses on the ground, lyrium seeps out of them and rises into the air in strands of blue, and from other elvhen soldiers, the light leeches off them in a steady stream. Ellana squints, and the halo almost looks like a ghost of a spirit. Faith, if Ellana had to guess at any kind. 

Alim, however, is spinning out glyph after glyph with a twirl of his staff, and the honing crystal atop his staff leaves trailing bits of smoke in its wake. All the lines of the glyphs and traps in the field lead back to him, and Ellana curls her lip in a sneer when she sees it. But then, Cassandra stumbles and drops her shield, and that’s all Alim needs to seal a fire mine underneath Cassandra’s feet. 

“No!” Ellana screams, and she straightens up only to dive at Cassandra. The force of her manages to knock Cassandra down, but the fire mine explodes behind Ellana, doing nothing more than radiate occlusive heat. No damage done. 

Cassandra shoves Ellana off her, but when her eyes meet Ellana’s, she breathes out, “Ellana? Is that you?”

“High Commander Ellana of Clan Lavellan,” Alim flatly says, voice echoing across the chaos of combat. “I thought you were to be in Halamshiral by nightfall. My cousin tells me she already cleared your paperwork through.”

“How can I leave Adahlennar, Surana?” Ellana grits out. “Perhaps I am simply too fond of the area.”

“Perhaps,” Surana bites out in a mimicry of Ellana’s words. Now, for the first time, Ellana sees something more beyond impassivity on his craggy face. Now, Ellana sees surprise that bleeds into frustration, almost anger. “Perhaps, you should step back from the Right Hand of the Divine, Lavellan. Perhaps, I can consider this a mistake in the midst of battle.”

“No,” Ellana says, firm and steady. She angles herself between Cassandra and Alim and says, “We could have established a peaceful resolution on the western front, but _now,_ you have escalated conflict to a breaking point.”

“Were we not at a breaking point before?” Surana replies, voice tight and angry. He struggles to marshal his features back into the inscrutable expression he had before, but now, he purses his lips and creases his brow as he looks at Ellana and then at Cassandra. “No,” he quietly says, realization spreading across his features. His hands drop to his sides, but the lines of magic do not dissipate yet. “Neria told me you healed unnaturally, almost impossible to recover without outside help. But could you, could it have been—”

“I, as High Commander of the Emerald Knights and Scion of the Dales, name Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast, the Right Hand of the Divine, as being under my formal protection,” Ellana declares. “Hurt her, and I will respond to you with the same.”

Ellana can hear Cassandra take in a short, sharp breath behind her, but her eyes are focused on Alim alone. “I will have to report you as _harellan,_ Ellana,” Alim whispers. “Do not make me do this. You know what they will do to you if you are made _harellan._ " The wind carries his voice to her, and Ellana can’t help but shiver at the word. His eyes lock on her, but Ellana knows what choice she has to make.

Ellana raises her left hand, and in the center of the scar on her palm, the Fade gathers in a crackling ball of green fire. With her right, she summons up her familiar spirit-blade, whetted against the edge of the Veil. Ellana lifts her chin, and as she stares directly at Alim, she says a single phrase that is torture-soft and silver-strong.

“Let them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think one of my favorite bits of this chapter is krem saying, "that's quitter talk" because that's a phrase a friend of mine uses oh so frequently. anyways, it's a long chapter! i tried to trim it down, but it is what it is. hope you enjoyed it though? let me know what you think in the comments!


	7. Chapter 7

_Harellan._

It’s a term that Cassandra is entirely unfamiliar with, but the way Surana gives it so much spoken gravity makes her tense. Then, whatever horror it may be, Ellana accepts it without hesitation. As Cassandra stares at Ellana’s back with awe, she thinks that this is truly the Lavellan of the stories and legends surrounding the Scions. _This_ is Lavellan, in all her impetuous glory, made bolder by the flecks of dawn and veilfire scattered across her skin.

“Then,” Surana says, voice cracking along the seams. “It is with my authority as High Commander and Scion of the Dales to name you _harellan,_ Ellana of Clan Lavellan. You will henceforth be stripped of clan and title and formally exiled from the Dales. You are left to run with the wolves now.”

Now, Cassandra gapes at Ellana. She willingly took on exile to protect someone that she’s been fighting against? Ellana glances back at Cassandra, and there’s a crooked smile on her face that doesn’t quite hide the pained look she holds deep inside her dark eyes. She looks forward and says, “Very well. I will ask you this now, Surana of the Dales. Will you fight me or will you call back your forces?” Ellana curls the fingers of her left hand in to trap a green light that starts to glow and gather in her palm. The air seems to flicker around her like some sort of mirage, and Cassandra inhales the sharp, sweet scent of embrium and ambrette that pulses with the familiar scent of magic. “Look at the field of the dead and weary, Alim,” Ellana continues. “They are the Chantry’s dead, but if you choose to continue, I must warn you that your troops will join them.”

“They are your countrymen,” Surana hisses.

“You named me _harellan,”_ Ellana replies evenly. “You are the one who has made them foreigners to me within the span of a single word. I will do what I believe I must in order to achieve peace, and if that means I must fight you, then I will.” She takes in one breath — deep and shuddering, shaking like a leaf withering on the cusp of winter — and says, soft and careful and painful, “I will also return one good favor for another, and I do not leave my debts unpaid, even if it is to the Chantry. Retreat, Alim, and I will do the same for you.”

Surana doesn’t move and doesn’t speak. But wordlessly, the lines of grey magic coating the field start to dim and flicker out. The numbness in Cassandra’s limbs escapes her, and the Veil starts to thicken with the absence of magic. One by one, the rest of the elvhen mages cease their casting, and Surana’s hand strays to his belt where a horn carved out of halla’s horn hangs. 

_“Ma serannas,”_ Ellana exhales. _“Ir abelas, ma falon.”_  

_“Tel’abelas,”_ Surana quietly says before he lifts the horn to his lips. He sounds a loud call with the horn that echoes out over the battlefield, and after a moment’s beat, the same mirrored call echoes from the treelines. The Dalish soldiers now pull away from the bloodied field, leaving the bodies of templars and broken mages behind. Some support injured elves while others hoist their own dead on their shoulders. But they leave just like they came: silently.

The elves that pass by them give them strange looks, but Ellana and Surana only face each other. They do not say another word, but when every single elf is gone from the field, Surana is the first to turn his back. Ellana watches him leave with stiff shoulders, but she finally turns around and faces Cassandra. Her expression is drawn tight with pain, and her lips are pressed together in a thin line. Ellana tugs her stitched leather gauntlets off and drops them by her side. Magic starts to weave itself over her slender fingers, and she lifts them up to cup Cassandra’s cheeks. She tugs Cassandra down to meet her own height and presses her forehead against Cassandra’s own. Ellana’s singing something soft and quiet under her breath, but the words are in a language Cassandra doesn’t understand. 

Cassandra feels magic reknit her wounds, and the sting in her limbs where the numbness was dissipates. The healing even soothes the ache in her muscles and the weariness in her bones. Ellana pulls away and looks into Cassandra’s eyes as she murmurs, “I have repaid my debt to you, Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast.” 

“You… You just committed treason,” Cassandra shakily replies. “For _me.”_

“I chose to save your life and in so doing, I have been deemed to be a traitor. A statement that I do not quite agree with, but I suppose that from Alim's perspective, it could not have been anything else but high treason worthy only of our god of betrayal, Fen'Harel,” Ellana answers. Her eyes flutter shut, and she sways slightly on her feet. “I still cannot believe that I did it. I am _harellan_ now." She cracks one eye open. “Although, one could argue that you and I were committing treason several weeks ago.” She exhales out a long, heavy breath before she says quietly, “I have been sundered from the Dales. I can no longer go back.”

“Why?” Cassandra asks, eyes wide and hands shaking. She hesitantly reaches out for Ellana.

Ellana catches her hands in her own as she replies, “Because I believe that we can broker some sort of peace.” She bends her head and holds Cassandra’s hands tightly. “And if we do not find a peace,” she whispers, tremulous and dolorous. “Then we will all kill ourselves in the process regardless of which side wins.”

 

* * *

 

Instead of the victorious fanfares that Merrill expected, the troops file back into the camp with an uneasy silence. Scion Mahanon of Clan Lavellan leads them well, but he leads them in silence. Scion Ellana of Clan Lavellan is nowhere to be seen, but Merrill supposes that she’s already made her way back to Halamshiral. Scion Alim of Clan Surana waits for them in the center of the camp, and his face is pale. His brow is creased deeply, and Merrill watches as his cousin slips out of a tent to meet him and Mahanon.

They share a hushed conversation between themselves, and Merrill wonders what they’re talking about. She glances over to Cillian and Lindiranae, and they look just as confused. “We are one of Commander Ellana’s elite Knights,” Cillian mutters under his breath. “You would think that in her absence, they would at least let one of us know what is going on.”

“Hush,” Lindiranae returns. “The High Commander’s brother is here, and he outranks all of us. Whatever happens will likely be for the best.”

Merrill nudges them both and nods towards the High Commanders. Lindiranae and Cillian settle down as High Commander Alim taps his throat with a glowing finger. He clears his throat, and then, in a voice that echoes out over the entirety of the camp, he declares, “Ellana of Clan Lavellan has been formally declared _harellan_ for consorting with the enemy and undermining the military operations of the Dales.”

Merrill’s hands shake as she stares at the Scion with abject horror unfolding on the lines of her face. _“Harellan?”_ she asks. She takes a stumbling step forward and cries out, “No, no, that can’t be true! High Commander Ellana?”

Lindiranae reaches out to drag Merrill back among the ranks, but the momentary dissension that Merrill caused starts to spread among the troops. The murmurs start to grow among the troops, but Merrill has eyes for the High Commanders. Alim of Clan Surana remains impassive, but Mahanon looks like he’s about to break. His hands are white-knuckled and tight around the grip of his bow, and his lips are thinly pressed together. Neria of Clan Surana looks… Well, Merrill can’t tell very well. Neria isn’t as impassive as her cousin, but the crease between her brows and the thinly pressed line of her lips makes Merrill think that Neria’s trying very hard to not let anything pass by the narrow veneer of her composure.

“High Commander Ellana of Clan Lavellan has been declared _harellan,”_ Surana repeats. His grim countenance remains firm as he continues, “The legion of soldiers formerly under her will be redistributed among the other Scions of the Dales. Individual regiments will stay together, but some of you will be sent to the eastern front while some will remain here.” High Commander Surana clears his throat and says, “Reassignment will be determined and distributed as soon as possible. You are all dismissed.”

The minute he dismisses them, the world around Merrill bursts into sound. It’s a cacophony of shock and horror, disgust and surprise, and Merrill can’t help but overhear bits and snippets of other conversations. “How did she get marked _harellan_ out of all the Scions? Wasn’t she one of the better Scions?” she hears someone say. Another person hisses, “Traitor to the Dales. We should’ve known better. Filthy _harellan._ I can’t believe I followed her orders. May the Dread Wolf find her scent and her path.”

Merrill turns to Lindiranae with a sentence of her own on her lips, but Lindiranae looks frozen with shock. Cillian shakes her by the shoulders and snaps out, “Lindiranae! What is wrong with you?”

Merrill reaches out for Lindiranae’s hand, but Lindiranae covers her own face with her hands instead. “How could she?” she asks in a shivering breath. “I looked up to her. I thought she was the bravest one out of all of us.” Lindiranae slides the span of her fingers wider just enough to reveal a sliver of her eyes, and as she peers at Merrill and Cillian, she whispers, “You saw her plunge back into battle, legs bleeding and burning to save us all. You heard her order the retreat while she stayed behind to make sure we survived. You know how she spent her days on diplomacy even though her mother was slaughtered by doing the same thing. How could she be _harellan?”_

“Things happen,” Cillian roughly says. “All’s fair in war.” He tries to tamp down the fury in his voice and eyes, but Merrill can see the undercurrent of confusion and anger that rattles through him. That surprises her. She always thought he was the peaceful sort despite not laughing or relaxing quite as much as the others like Lindiranae, but she didn’t know he had the capacity for this kind of fury. “Who knows, maybe that diplomatic streak in her is what got her marked _harellan,”_ he seethes. “We have spilled blood and lost loved ones for the sake of protecting our borders, and if she turns on all that history without another thought, then I do not know if she ever deserved the title of Scion and High Commander.” 

“Cillian!” Merrill snaps back. Now, her own anger rears up to meet Cillian’s own rage. “You know her, you’ve trained with her, you’ve fought by her side, and now, you turn on her like that?” she asks. She shakes her head as she continues, “May the Creators put some mercy into your heart because you have no heart to say something like that about Ellana.”

Merrill sways on her feet, and she heaves out one burdensome breath. Cillian turns away from her to stride away to his tent, but just before he leaves, he says, sulfur-soft and ember-hard, "I had a cousin once, a cousin who listened to too many stories and wanted peace more than anything else, just like  _her._ Now, my cousin is dead, Clan Ralaferin has no First, and we are left with the same mistake. How many times will we make the same mistake over and over again? I refuse to."

Cillian leaves for good now, but Lindiranae stays. She stays in rigid position, shoulders set straight and arms perfectly at her sides. Her gaze is directed forward and only forward, and she doesn’t react when Merrill taps her on the shoulder. “Lindiranae?” Merrill softly asks. When she gets no response, Merrill presses her lips together in a thin line. An idea flickers into Merrill’s heads, and this time, she mimics the deeper, lilting dialect that Ellana has as she says, “At ease, Lindiranae.”

Lindiranae relaxes but only by a fraction. Her gaze focuses in on Merrill, and now, she asks tonelessly, “What will happen to us, Merrill?”

“We…” Merrill trails off. She doesn’t have an answer for that. 

“I see,” Lindiranae quietly replies. She shifts her weight before she turns and walks back to her tent without another word. Merrill watches her disappear into the crowd with a sad expression twisting the lines of her face. 

Merrill’s about to head to her own tent herself, but she hears someone call out her name. When she glances back, it’s Scion Mahanon. She almost flinches when she sees his face. It’s so similar to Ellana’s face in terms of eyes and hair and overall features, but it’s also not quite the same. Instead of the branches of Mythal, he has the lines of Dirthamen like Merrill herself. It’s a slightly different style but the meanings are the same. “Merrill,” he repeats. “I was looking for you.”

Merrill falls into a half-hearted position and limply lifts her hand up for a salute. “How may I be of service?” she asks. 

“You are being assigned to watch over the prisoners of war,” Mahanon tells her. He looks too weary to be telling her this, but Merrill watches him shake out the sadness from his features. His face now looks more impassive when he says, “They’re over by the far tents bound by magic. By my orders as High Commander and Scion, you are allowed to use your blood magic should it be necessary.” His features soften by just a hair’s worth as he murmurs, “Do not worry. My sister may not be able to vouch for you and your practices to the council, but this is one thing that I will continue on her behalf.” He hesitates. Merrill can see a glimpse of the weakness and pain flicker in his eyes before he plunges in and admits, “It is one thing of my sister’s that I can at least hold onto. A single promise in her stead. _On nydha.”_

_“On nydha,”_ Merrill echoes. “Good night.” She shuffles away from her place as soon as High Commander Mahanon departs. She hunches her shoulders forward and hugs herself in an effort to make herself smaller as she makes her way past all of the other soldiers. She’s not a popular elf among the camp by any means. Esoteric interests will do that to you, especially if it’s something like blood magic. Even for the less superstitious elves, it was simply undeniable that blood magic made dream walking more difficult, so some tended to avoid Merrill to avoid their dreams from being tainted. Merrill _knows_ that claim isn’t true. High Commander Ellana dreamed all the time despite being friends with Merrill. She can’t use that proof now though. Any mention of the former Scion’s name might land her in the same position, and Merrill already knows that she walks a fine line between esotericism and becoming _harellan._  

When she arrives to where the prisoners of war are supposed to be kept, she sees a few _shemlen_ lying within grey-white glyphs drawn onto the ground. The work of the Scion or one of his retainers. Merrill squints at them and tries to note their faces down. One is a human woman with cropped black hair and a streak of red across her nose while another is a human man with a scruffy cloak thrown over his robes and blond hair tied back. Both have their mouths open in what appears to be the act of screaming, but the glyph circles muffle them. There’s also an elf already there to watch over the prisoners of war, and he arches a brow when he sees Merrill. 

_“Andaran atish’an,”_ Merrill nervously tries. “I’m Merrill.” She didn’t know she would have someone else working with her. Well, it makes sense logically, but this is an elf she’s never seen before. 

He inclines his head towards her and replies back, “Fenris. _Andaran atish’an.”_

Merrill cocks her head to the side when she hears his voice. It’s accented with a different lilt, and his words go up on different places in the words where she’s used to. His vallaslin look distinctly different as well, and she can’t quite identify the god that it’s supposed to represent. Perhaps he’s from a clan outside the borders of the Dales. There are still some clans that choose to live outside the Dales for their own reasons, notably in the Anderfels, Seheron, and Rivain. 

Merrill wonders if she should continue the conversation. She’s certainly capable of continuing on a decidedly awkward conversation, but Fenris has already lapsed into a quiet silence. Merrill decides to turn her attention on the glyphs then. She reaches out a hand to brush her fingertips along the grooves of the glyph dug deep into the ground, and the transparent walls rising upward along the circle turn opaquely grey. Merrill squints at them and sees purple beginning to curl within the depths of the smoke-like magic. Then, among the purple, she starts seeing shimmering images. Merrill jerks her hand away but it’s too late. The images start to unwind themselves into full scenes.

There’s a rustle behind her as Fenris comes up closer to watch what’s unfolding in the span of the magic. Merrill and Fenris both watch with wide eyes as they see the images of a field that runs into a valley. There’s the same woman with cropped hair in the scene, but beside her, there are other people. Three look like her — one man, two women — with similar features. There’s a tall woman bearing a shield and supporting another man who looks weak and has blackened veins shot through his skin. They’re fighting a series of twisted, Blighted creatures. Darkspawn. Merrill shudders as she realizes that she’s watching the last remnants of the Second Blight. One ogre swings out and crushes one of the women in the image. The younger one with long black hair goes flying, and Merrill covers her eyes when she sees the ogre rear back and begin to slam its fist down on the girl. 

The scene changes once more to reveal deep, dark tunnels. The only light comes from a flickering flame concentrated in the center of the woman’s hand. Beside her is the same boy that looks like her and the same woman with the shield. The dwarf walking alongside them with a crossbow is new though. Merrill sees the way black veins are threading along the boy’s skin though, and she desperately prays for the opposite to be true. She’s proven wrong when the scene shows the woman quietly and miserably ending the boy’s life. Blackened blood drips out of him, but he dies with one last painful smile on his face.

The final scene shows the shambling corpse of the third woman Merrill saw in the first image. But this is something different, something profane, something fundamentally _wrong._ There are pieces of other bodies to form this unnatural whole, and the bright blue of the woman’s eyes are dull and milky. There is blood spattered everywhere, and then the threads holding the stitches and the woman start to unravel. Merrill’s breath stutters from the sheer horror of it, and she can hear Fenris swear in a foreign language under his breath at the sight.

This isn’t what they normally use to entrap the templars and foot soldiers that assail their borders. This is the kind of insidious trap that they use for _mages_. Merrill takes a closer look at the glyphs and recognizes the characters that loops around the outer ring of the glyph. _Horror. Nightmare. Paralysis. Miasma._ These are glyphs designed to sap a mage’s strength and will and subsequently, their mana. It’s easier to snap the life of a soldier for the average Dalish soldier than it is to kill a mage because of the colliding threads of magic. These are also the glyphs that they use in the highest of prisons within the Dales. Punishments for the criminals with the worst crimes marked on their records, fates for people who deserved worse than exile, than death, than anything else. Merrill would rather die than be trapped in one for such a long period. Furthermore, to have this be designed and brought to life by Alim of Clan Surana, the Glyph-Crafter, means that it is quite possibly one of the strongest nightmare circles created in the Dales.

Merrill makes a decision in the span of a single second and reaches over with the toe of her foot to rub out the character representing _nightmare_ in the first circle. She keeps characters like _paralysis_ and the main character, _trap,_ within the circle, but she can’t bear to watch this nightmare keep playing over and over for the poor woman. She presses her hands against the smoke-like magic of the walls and forces it to bend to her will. The glyph is unwilling to move or stray from its purpose, but eventually, the smoke clears out to transparency once more.

The _shemlen_ woman inside stirs ever so slowly before she cracks open her eyes. They’re a brilliant, bright blue color, and her gaze flickers around her. She tries to register what’s going on, and the first thing that Merrill hears is her hoarse voice say, “Bethany? Carver? Mother?” Her voice cracks like thin winter ice on every syllable of the names she speaks, and her fingers tremble despite the absence of wind or chill within the glyph. Magic threatens to flicker up on her fingertips, but the glyph makes the magic die out as soon as it rises.

The woman shakes herself when she notices Fenris and Merrill beside her. Her gaze goes downward and finds the glyph drawn around her, and now, she groans, “Oh, this has to be Andraste and the Maker and whatever else is up there in the lofty heavens who are royally done with everything I’ve managed to do in the last few years.” She props herself up before rubbing the side of her head and wincing. “Although, I won’t apologize for making Meredith’s life a living hell,” she mutters. “That woman deserved it. Maybe a bit sorry for some things, but also not sorry for some petty crimes. If Cullen doesn’t want his biscuits stolen, maybe he should keep them in a safer place.”

She raises her head to meet Merrill and Fenris’s gaze straight on, and she focuses her shaking self long enough to meet it unflinchingly. Her gaze is ice and snow and sky all compressed down into eyes that glint against the flickering mage-lights that illuminate the camp. That impresses Merrill. She doesn’t think she could come out of a waking nightmare with that much composure. “The name’s Hawke,” she says with a deceptively blithe tone. “Pleasure to meet the enemy.” 

 

* * *

 

Josephine folds her gloved hands and runs the pad of her thumb over her lace handkerchief. She can still feel the intricate pattern in spite of the gloves, and she waits. Waiting is a game she has perfected over the years, and she waits with a smile on her lips. Across the slim table, Divine Renata, Lord Demetrius Aron, and Leliana are all seated. The plates in front of them are almost empty, and Josephine knows that now is the time to strike. Now, when they are full and sated, when satisfaction is seeping into their bones from the meal, when Josephine has the best chance of success. 

Josephine knows that Leliana’s still on high alert. She’s always been a touch too taut during dinners and meetings after the Blight. All the vigilance she gained from the Blight is not so easy to lose within the span of a single year of peacetime, and with the advancement of the Exalted March, Leliana’s grown sharper and harder in all the wrong places. Josephine doesn’t like seeing her friend turn so bitter, but she has to admit that these are the times for it.

Another reason why Josephine should succeed tonight.

“Your Worship, Lady Montilyet, tonight has been a pleasure,” Lord Demetrius sighs. He leans back in his chair, sated from the meal, and Josephine can easily see the indolence slipping over his shoulders like a well-worn shawl. She knows men like him all too well. Men born in the houses of nobility with blood stained on their names but never on their hands. Josephine’s never been one to like men like that. Yes, men like him are easy to manipulate, easy to work with, but the women are the ones who know the warp and weft of the game Josephine plans to play the best. Perhaps this is for the better. She needs to win tonight anyways.

Josephine gives him a smile, corners of the lips quirking just a millimeter up. The Divine steps into the conversation though by replying, “The pleasure is always mine, Lord Demetrius. It’s only fitting that we should celebrate the coming end of the Exalted March, no?”

“Of course, your Worship,” Demetrius says, easy and smooth.

Josephine can taste his arrogance with every word he says. As expected. She holds back the sneer that she truly wants to wear and instead, she asks, “And is the Exalted March going as expected, Lord Demetrius?” She bats her eyelashes and folds her hands demurely in her lap over her lace handkerchief. “Forgive me for the question. I’m afraid we get news much more slowly in Antiva compared to the rest of Orlais.”

That gets a full-blown chortle out of Lord Demetrius as he says, “Why, it’s going splendidly, Lady Montilyet, not to worry.” He inclines his head towards Josephine and says, “Rest assured that the Orlesian Empire takes care of their own, Antiva included.”

Josephine grits her teeth into a smile, and underneath the table, her gloved hands curl over the lace with a vicious grip. “I shall be looking forward to the end of the March then, my lord,” she replies. There’s a thread of opportunity that she could snatch here though. “Perhaps we should have another party in Antiva then,” she decides to say. “I would be happy to arrange it.”

The lord’s eyes gleam at the mention of a party. The man’s always liked to parade his wealth and accomplishments in Orlais. A party in Antiva would open up a wider range of people to be his new audience. Josephine has played the Great Game before; she knows what he wants. Lord Demetrius rubs his hands together and says, “Why, of course. That sounds like a delightful idea.”

Divine Renata muses, “It’s been so long since I’ve been to Antiva.” She glances over to Leliana and asks, “What about you, Sister Nightingale?”

Josephine watches Leliana carefully lace over grace and modesty over her sharp countenance before she says, “I would cherish the opportunity to visit Antiva again, your Worship. It _has_ been quite some time since I’ve last been there.” Leliana looks over to Josephine, and their gazes meet for a perfect second. Josephine nods with the barest motion she can muster up, and Leliana answers by saying, “I believe the last time I was there was during the Blight.”

Perfect. “Yes, I do remember that, Leliana,” Josephine tells her. “You and the Wardens stopped by Antiva for aid, and we had that one final party before marching to the Battle of Starkhaven.” 

Leliana’s expression dims which is regrettable, but both Josephine and Leliana know that it’s a necessary part of the conversation. “Yes…” Leliana quietly answers. She hesitates before she ducks her head and murmurs, “May Corin and Neriah both rest in peace.”

“Yes, truly,” Divine Renata tuts. She sweeps back her expansive sleeves to sign the Sword of Mercy for Leliana and adds, “Their sacrifice was unfortunate but necessary. We shall always remember and honor them for their deeds.”

“Starkhaven still seems like it was only yesterday,” Leliana admits. Her voice is quiet, but Josephine knows that this is a clear sign for herself. A sign to move forward in the conversation and push their pieces forward on the Game’s board. 

Josephine uncurls her fingers around her handkerchief and asks, “Have you been back ever since, Leliana?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Leliana answers. A wry smile makes her lips quirk up before she says, “The Exalted March has taken up most of my time here.”

“Ah, I see,” Josephine says. She allows a few seconds to trickle by before she weaves together the thread Demetrius provided and the plan that Leliana has given her the piece to. She begins her play by musing, “Starkhaven has been… Hm, let’s just say that things are growing quite interesting in the Free Marches.” She arches a brow and says, “I don’t quite know if Orlais has been watching, but as a neighbour of the Free Marches, it has been quite the experience.”

Demetrius narrows his eyes and leans forward in his seat. “What is happening in Starkhaven, Lady Montilyet?” he asks, voice rigid with warning.

Josephine holds back a smile. It’s all going to plan. 

“Why, are you not aware, Lord Demetrius?” she asks, diffident and demure. Her tone does not shake nor does it brook in its tone. Perhaps, in a different life, Josephine could have been an actor. But here, she is not, and here, she is an ambassador, a diplomat, a weaver of words and emotions and pieces in the space of the Great Game. And she is performing to the best of her ability.

“Sister Nightingale,” Demetrius now says. His spine grows straighter and straighter as he continues, “Have you ever heard of an issue in Starkhaven?”

“No, Demetrius,” Leliana answers, sharp and pointed. “I have been, as ordered, focused entirely on the Exalted March rather than the Free Marches.” Her voice grows a touch more acidic as she adds, “There are only so many Marches that can occupy the Empire’s attention.”

Divine Renata’s shoulders go back, and her gaze goes from Demetrius to Leliana with a startling speed. “But the Sunburst Throne reaches all corners of Thedas as surely as the sun shines bright,” she says. It is meant to be a warning, and everyone else stiffens at the note. Renata pauses, and when she’s satisfied with the warning, she demands, “Lady Montilyet, tell us more.”

“Of course, your Worship, I had no intention of diminishing the influence of the Chantry,” Josephine says in a soothing voice. “I only mean that Starkhaven is fomenting quite the idea with other neighbours of theirs.”

Demetrius snorts, “What is Fyruss planning in that city of his?”

“Have you not corresponded with King Fyruss in recent times, Lord Demetrius?” Josephine wonders. Her tone is the lightest that she can make it, but Demetrius bristles at her words. 

“What? Of course not,” he snaps back. “We have an Exalted March on our hands.” He’s agitated now, and he’s always less observant when he gets into that mood. Josephine’s heard of him in other circles that she frequents in Orlais. He tends to be sloppy when he’s irritated or annoyed, but if he’s pushed too far into nascent anger or full fury, then his focus hones into the sharpest that Orlais can offer. It’s one of the reasons why he’s done so well for himself during the Exalted March, aside from his simpering to the Divine and his overwhelming arrogance in the Imperial Court. 

“Ah, understandable, understandable. Like the case of Leliana over there, no?” Josephine murmurs. “But to clarify, I believe Fyruss has been in…” She trails off. All eyes are on her now. Josephine leans in forward by the slightest bit, and all three people sway in closer. “How should I phrase this?” she wonders. “Well, I suppose Fyruss has been making friends. I hear of new parties all the time with names of guests that I have not heard before. Merely that.”

The Divine stonily repeats, “Merely that.”

“Merely that,” Josephine confirms once more.

Demetrius leans back against his chair again, and the familiar haughtiness laces over his features once more. “Ah, so it’s just some pish-posh from the ambassador’s end,” he sighs out.

Josephine sees the way Leliana curls her hands into sharp-knuckled fists and feels a flutter of small fear in her throat. “Lord Demetrius,” she hears Leliana snarl out, just as she feared. It’s in this moment that she sees the knife that the Divine has sharpened Leliana into. It’s a fact that Josephine knows in the bottom of her many-chambered heart — the fact that Leliana is broken bone and shard of soul that has been bound and reforged into the raven-winged left knife-hand of the Divine — and a fact that Josephine despairs over. But it’s also in this moment that Josephine kicks out her foot to brush against Leliana’s knee. 

“Oh, Sister Nightingale, don’t be so uptight,” Demetrius sneers. “I was merely making a joke with Lady Montilyet. Right, Lady Montilyet?” He looks up at Josephine with all the delighted expectation in the world. He _knew_ it would get a reaction out of Leliana, and Josephine suspects that he’s thoroughly pleased with the way that he’s cracked through Leliana’s infamous veneer of cold composure.

Josephine inclines her head and bites down her fury to say, “Of course, Lord Demetrius. Of course.”

“Well, this is certainly an interesting turn of events,” Leliana grits out between her teeth. Josephine lifts a single brow, and Leliana settles her face back into a semblance of even composure. Leliana gestures over to Josephine as she asks, like they rehearsed, “Does anyone else know, Josephine?”

“Oh, Antiva knows,” Josephine chuckles. “And since I am here on another diplomatic meeting, I’m sure the emperor — if he did not know by now — will be aware of the matter.” She lifts up her gaze to look at Leliana directly in the eyes, knowing full well that she has the complete attention of Divine Renata. “No need to worry yourself so, Leliana, Lord Demetrius, Divine Renata. I am _sure_ that the Exalted March requires more of your attention.”

“The Exalted March is a matter that the emperor _should_ be preoccupied with,” Divine Renata suddenly says. Her words are quick and firm — the words of a woman who has never been denied and does not expect to be denied any time soon — and she draws herself up to her full, straight posture against the back of her chair.

“That is completely understandable, your Worship,” Josephine replies soothingly. “Perhaps I could mention that briefly in our meeting tomorrow as well then?”

The Divine relaxes by a fraction of an amount, but it’s enough for Josephine to know that she’s successfully moved her first pawn forward. Divine Renata tilts her head to the side by one degree as she murmurs, “That would be lovely, Lady Montilyet. You are always such a pleasant woman. Truly the best that Antiva has to offer.”

“You flatter me, your Worship,” Josephine answers. “Well then, thank you for hosting such a lovely dinner.”

“Always, Lady Montilyet,” Divine Renata warmly says.

Josephine folds her napkin before she lifts her gaze up to survey the table. Renata is satisfied and sated, both from the news and the meal, and Demetrius has his dark eyes flickering between the Divine and Josephine. Good for both of them. That means Renata has been lulled into the right kind of assumption about the whole ordeal, and it also means that Demetrius will be jumping at the bit to get his hands involved in the matter that Josephine has half-manufactured and half-revealed to him. 

But more importantly, Josephine meets Leliana’s impassive gaze and finds her answer in the set of Leliana’s lips. One corner quirks up by the smallest amount before it returns to its even line, but that’s enough. It’s so small that Demetrius barely notices — not that he’s even paying attention to Leliana — but Josephine knows that Leliana has been amenable to the thing Josephine’s been weaving for the entirety of the dinner.

All parties are satisfied now, which is excellent. Josephine reaches for her lace handkerchief and slides the pad of her index finger down the whorling, looped pattern of it with a certain kind of satisfaction.

After all, Josephine hates to leave social functions with a thread out of place.

 

* * *

 

Mahanon opens the flap to his own personal tent, and when the heavy canvas falls shut in his wake, he falls to his knees and begins to weep.

Tonight, he has lost a sister, a best friend, and one of the last pieces of true family he has left. He has lost it all in one fell swoop, lost it in a single branding of _harellan._ The word feels acrid on his tongue now. _Harellan._ He curls closer into himself, clutching his arms around him. He can feel every shake of his chest, but he hears no sound. He is too proud, too wary, and too suspicious to allow the sounds of his sobs to be anything more than silent. 

But then, he unfolds. He breathes in, long and heavy. He exhales, slow and sibilant. Then, Mahanon allows himself to stand up under the weight of his grief. Instead of turning to his cot, he turns to his small chest of belongings instead. There, he reaches for a stylus, for paper and sending stone. 

He does not have any more time to waste on weeping because he must carry out what his sister cannot.

_For peace,_ he thinks. _Instead of war._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clarifications:  
> corin and neriah were the grey wardens responsible for ending the second blight. in case of confusion, neriah was the human grey warden mage that helped corin slay the archdemon and perished in the process. neria of clan surana is from the elven mage origin from dao while neria of clan ralaferin is a character from the multiplayer game in dai.
> 
> anyways, it's been a while. i've had this draft sitting in my files for a while, but i never managed to muster up the time or energy to fully complete it. now that i've finished settling into my new place across the country, i'm hoping to finish more, but considering the classes i'm currently taking, i may not be able to. we'll see how it goes, but regardless of the delay, i hope you enjoyed the new chapter! let me know what your thoughts on it were in the comments bc i'd love to hear them :") thanks!


	8. Chapter 8

There is no greater terror than magic.

Cullen feels that thought thrum through every heartbeat of his, and he lifts his head up wearily to gaze at the dead and wounded. He was lucky. That’s what other soldiers have told him. He fell into a glyph primed for a mage — a glyph designed to become a waking nightmare — instead of one meant to cut the thread of his life short. 

The nightmare inside the glyph was horrible. The world shifted and undulated in a series of blue fog for Cullen within the walls of the nightmare that the glyph crafted for him. An ever-present melody sang out, stark and cold, in the hollows of his ears, and it rang out as if it was ricocheting and amplifying itself against the stone of the Tower. Then, purple seeped in through the cracks and reminded him of every horror that he ever committed within the Circle Tower of the territory the Chantry was trying to establish in Alamarri territory and then within the ranks of Commander Stannard’s legion. The nightmare told him every single horrific thing that he ever did to the likes of mages and elves in explicit detail, and Cullen cannot forget it.

There was a mage at that tower. The Free Marches were overflowing with too many mages for the few Circles established in the Free Marches, and thus, some of their mages were transferred over to the newly established Circle on the shores of a great lake in Alamarri Territory. The tower was a vestige of Tevinter presence in the area; they thought that the lake was blessed by their god of mysteries and that those who drank from the waters were granted special insights. Cullen knows different tales about the lake. His father told him an Alamarri legend about protection of the land seeping deep into the waters while his mother told him an Avvar myth about a grand mountain that was destroyed in a battle between Korth the Mountain Father and the serpent Nathramar. But regardless of the tale, the mages and templars were housed in that tower.

One of those mages was named Amell. Specifically, her name was Solona Amell of the Free Marches, from the city-state of Kirkwall. Her accent was broader and clipped in different places than his own burr, and he remembers being absolutely fascinated by her. They had conversations about the world beyond the tower along with other mundane conversations like how to catch fish in the lake and what the scent of the great Alamarri plains were. Strangely, Amell seemed to enjoy talking about the things that Cullen considered mundane. The scent of wild sage and elfroot, the color of heather on the moorlands, and the taste of sourdough fresh from the oven. Cullen actually brought her some of his mother’s bread once, secretly and quietly. He was startled when she cried after taking a bite. He didn’t understand why she cried nor did he understand why she wanted to know every detail about a simple life on the moors.

All those quiet conversations during his guard shift at the library and pieces of bread and dried heather slipped behind bookshelves were for naught though. Everything fell apart when some mages decided to toy with blood magic in an attempt to escape. The blood rites went wrong, and demons invaded the tower, plunging everything into swathes of purple and blue haze. The demons all looked like Amell to him, taunting him and laughing at him and torturing him with cuts and bruises. When the actual Amell came to save him, he spat filthy, horrible words at her. 

He remembers that part very well. Instead of curling her lips back to reveal demon teeth or letting blood spill out of her eyes like the other demons did, she stepped back and gasped. Like a normal person, like a normal human being instead of the twisted grey demons that prowled through the tower and tried to suck out his life from his marrow. And Amell left, never to be seen again in the Tower. The last thing he ever heard about her was that she joined the Grey Wardens. 

He thinks about the memory and then the nightmare trap. He was in the same room of the tower in the nightmare as he was when Amell finally found him, but in that room, he heard every hateful word he ever spoke echoed back to him in his own voice. The room began to fill up and clog with the blood of mages and elves that he’s spilled over the years, and the stones began to shudder with lyrium-song. He saw Amell’s face wrapped up with shock and overwhelming hurt in that nightmare.

Cullen wraps his arms around himself and shivers in the chill night air. Truly, magic was a nightmarish force to reckon with. If the glyph could trap him in a memory — a waking horror — so deeply, then he cannot imagine what the elves of the Dales are capable of next.

But beyond his own nightmare, Cullen remembers what happened when he escaped the glyph. He still replays the memory of Hawke in his mind’s eye. He can still see her hand reach out for him and yank him out. He remembers how she poured magic into the crevices of the glyph and tried to burst it from the inside out. But most importantly, he can remember her falling into the glyph herself, and in that brief moment when they were both in the glyph together, he saw the fluid shift from his nightmares into _hers._ Fields of darkspawn, blight spreading throughout Alamarri territory, black and red blood spattering the ground alike. He could have sworn he heard Hawke’s voice scream out a girl’s name. Bethy? He hasn’t known Hawke very long, but he didn’t think she had a sister. He only knew of the dead brother in the tunnels and the mother butchered by a mage. Cullen shakes his head and tries to move on from his thoughts. 

There’s a ruckus near the front of the crowd that gains his attention next. He cranes his neck and glimpses Lady Pentaghast. However, she’s slightly limping. Another woman is beside her, supporting her and helping her along. They’re deep in conversation, but when the first calls of the Chantry troops ring out, she lifts her head to reveal dark tattoos across her face and sharply pointed elven ears. 

The cheers quickly turn into stunned silence, and Cullen’s chest feels tight with curdled distaste and horror. Still, a brief flicker of hope shines in his heart, and he elbows his way to the front to cry out, “Your Worship! You captured a knife-ear!” 

General Samson and General de Brassard are already closer to the Right Hand than he is, and he can hear Samson breathe out, “Maker’s breath, that’s a Scion of the Dales.”

“You managed to capture a High Commander of the Dales?” General de Brassard asks in hushed tones.

Sure enough, the face is a familiar one, sketched out in the dossiers they distributed out in training camp. The infamous Scions of the Dales were known throughout the empire for being the most brutal and deadly dangers of the war, and their epithets were whispered like curses in the dead of night. Alerion, the Grey-eyed Beast that trained the Dalish war-halla to kill with horn and hoof. Mahariel, the Gravekeeper and Tabris, the Butcher: both responsible for the deaths of far too many good men. Even the Scions with less threatening names, like Surana the Glyph-Crafter, were fully capable of utter devastation. The last battle was simply proof of that.

And Cullen has been stationed on the eastern front long enough to know the face of Ellana of Clan Lavellan, the ghost-bladed Arbiter and one-half of the Twin Devils of the Dales. Even in the face of their new tactics and mage-fire, he watched her smile with devilish teeth and lift her hands to summon dark, swirling storm clouds that arced down lightning to scorch their good soldiers.

To have such a woman as a _prisoner?_ Excellent and more than anything Cullen could have ever hoped for.

Cullen manages to reach the generals’ side and laughs, bright and clear, with this sudden turn in the war. “Brilliant,” he says, half-choked with a kind of breathy joy. “One out of the nine, and now there’s only eight of those wretches left. Quick, someone grab some rope and tie the knife-ear up.”

Cassandra’s expression twists, and her lips purse briefly together into a thin line before she says, “She isn’t a wretch or a knife-ear. In fact, she is not a prisoner. She is here of her own volition.”

Cullen blinks _hard_ when he hears the words coming out of Cassandra’s mouth. If this is her attempt at a joke, then it’s a terribly poor one. “Likely to kill us all while she pretends to be kind,” he tells her. “Smite the witch down before she kills us all. I’ll smite her myself if you’d like.”

“Your Worship, the Lieutenant General’s right,” General Samson adds. He puts a hand to the pommel of his sword, but Cullen’s already beat him to it by drawing his sword out and pointing the tip at the Scion.

“Hush, Samson,” Cassandra sharply says. “I, as the Right Hand of the Divine, use both the powers granted to me by the Divine and by the ongoing Exalted March to pardon Ellana of Clan Lavellan.” Her eyes grow cold and hard like silverite, and she gestures over to Lavellan. “She will remain here, free and unsmited, to help orchestrate peace efforts and bring a close to this war.”

Anger sparks up, hot and heavy, in his throat, and Cullen barely manages to get his voice in control long enough to snarl out, “That sounds like treason, your Worship.”

Lady Pentaghast turns her gaze on Cullen, and he watches her cold gaze drill right through him. “And treason would also mean going against my orders when I’ve decreed them, Rutherford,” she warns him. “Remember your place.”

“These are grounds for excommunication, your Worship,” Cullen sputters. _Fuck_ rank; this is _treason._ He shoulders past General Samson and General de Brassard to cry out, “That’s a Scion. That’s the ghost-bladed one, one of the Twin Devils of the Dales, the one who’s been murdering us every week!” He looks over at the rest of the soldiers filed behind him and sees far less men than there were first. Familiar faces who have had the fortune — or perhaps, the misfortune — to live for the next battle and newer, unfamiliar faces who are here to replace the ones who’ve already fallen. But even then, _too little men._ Fury whets the edge of his voice as he snaps, “Do you know how many of us she’s killed? How many of us she’s slaughtered? She’s behind every war plan and tactic that’s spilled our blood.”

“Rutherfo—”

The Right Hand gets interrupted by a quiet cough from Lavellan as she clears her throat. “Thank you, Cassandra, but let me speak for myself,” she murmurs softly. 

Lady Pentaghast examines Lavellan’s expression carefully, and to Cullen’s utter disgust, he’s close enough to see the way her eyes soften. “Cassandra. Ha. You’re on first name terms now?” he scoffs.

Lavellan ignores him to say, “Lieutenant General Rutherford, was it? I am Ellana of Clan Lavellan.”

“You’re a murderer,” Cullen retorts. The men behind him cheer at the sound and begin to chant the word over and over again until it crescendos into the sound of pent-up rage that they’ve all kept in the cage of their ribs.

Lavellan still ignores the sound and levels her gaze at Cullen. “I could say the same of you, Lieutenant General Rutherford,” she tells him. “We have all lost loved ones and good soldiers on these plains.”

“I don’t need to listen to the words of a filthy Scion,” Cullen spits at her.

“Rutherford,” Cassandra warns again, but this time, Cullen can hear the dangerous edge in her voice. That only incites fear deep in the recesses of Cullen’s heart. How could have the Right Hand of the Divine fall so far?

_“Magic is a cancer in the heart of our land, just as it was in the time of Andraste. And like her, we are left with no choice but to purify it with fire and blood,”_ Commander Stannard told him once. _“Will you stand idle while magic ravages our world or will you protect those you love?”_ Meredith Stannard may have been tried for war crimes, but right now, Cullen feels like he’s watching his world fall apart once more.

“Cassandra, it is alright,” Lavellan quietly says. She lets out a soft sigh and glances over at Cullen once more as she says, “Well then, I shall have to inform you that I am a Scion and a High Commander no longer.”

“What?” Cullen blankly says.

A corner of Lavellan’s mouth quirks up in a sad, wry smile as she continues, “I committed treason against my own people and the other Scions to protect the Right Hand of the Divine. For that, I have been cast out of the Dales and stripped of my position.” She raises her hand to run a finger down the tattoos on her face and says, “I am _harellan,_ forever sundered from my home. Do you know why, Lieutenant General Rutherford?”

Cullen blinks hard when he hears Lavellan’s voice quietly ask that. It brings back a memory for him: a different voice but almost, _almost_ , the same words. _“Do you know why I like to hear about your home, Ser Rutherford?”_ Cullen remembers Amell asking him once, softly and painfully. _“It’s because I can never return to my own home. I will always stay as a prisoner in this tower.”_

When Cullen focuses back on Lavellan, he realizes that everyone has gone silent. Cullen warily glances back at the rest of the soldiers and at General Samson and General de Brassard, but he finds that it’s only him and Lavellan in this conversation. “...Why?” he finally asks.

“It is because I believe that we can forge together peace,” Lavellan says. She spreads out her empty hands. “I am not here to kill. My hands are already stained with too much blood, and so are yours. I am here as a diplomat, not a soldier.”

“‘Scuse me for just barging in on your conversation, but you just said you’ve been kicked out of the Dales,” General Samson snorts. “How do you expect to have any say in what goes on in your country now, elf?”

“I am not the only one weary of the war in my country, and I am sure that there are more in your country that are tired of this war,” Lavellan evenly says. She takes a step forward, and the clank of metal against metal rings out as almost everyone reaches for their weapons. Lavellan takes no heed of the sound and instead, she revolves slowly around to survey the rest of the camp, staying in the same place for now. “Are you not tired of fighting? Are you not tired of losing your loved ones, your brothers and sisters at arms? Do you not wish to return home?” she asks. Her voice rings out now, stronger and stronger. “Does the blood on your hands grow cold and heavy? Do the lives you’ve taken not weigh on your shoulders?” She pauses for a moment of silence, and her eyes flutter shut as she admits, “We are more alike than you claim, and if we do not establish peace, then this Exalted March will consume both of us and there will be nothing left in the carnage of the aftermath.”

Small murmurs start to fill the silence, and Cullen can’t help but wonder now. But then, when he shifts his feet, he jars a still-open wound and tears open a few clots. The jolts of pain startle him, and he looks down at his wounded body. He blinks and sees spots of purple still flickering over his vision when he closes his eyes for a moment too long. It only reminds him of the nightmare trap, of the horrors he’s seen on the battlefield, and of the precious friends he’s lost. He isn’t convinced yet. His first phalanx was lost entirely to the machinations of the Dales with only him and his commander, Greagoir, left to tell the tale. His second was dissolved by the Right Hand of the Divine, but half of the original phalanx was scorched through and through with Lavellan’s lightning and fury. He will not lose a third to negligence, to trust afforded to those who haven’t deserved it yet, to magic not guarded and kept quiet. So, he sneers, “Pretty words, aren’t they? You saw the way your people’s glyphs trapped us and made us live a waking nightmare. Disgusting.”

Lady Pentaghast clears her throat now and says firmly, “She saved me from those glyphs and protected me from another Scion at the cost of her own position and her own home, Lieutenant General. Let her speak.”

Lavellan sighs, “Very well.” She holds out her hand to Cullen and says, “Then, as a sign of good faith, Lieutenant General Rutherford, smite me. That way, I will no longer have magic at my disposal, and I will be left with nothing but my bare hands and my words in a camp full of the Orlesian Empire’s finest soldiers.”

Lady Pentaghast flinches at the sound of Lavellan’s suggestion, but Cullen narrows his eyes. His sword is already drawn, and he still has a few dregs of lyrium burning through his veins. Without another word, he simply lifts his sword and then drags it back down into one mighty smite. With the motion of his pull, the lyrium in his blood lights afire into a heavenly radiant beam and channels forward to slam into Lavellan. The familiar sensation of magic growing dull and silent fills his senses, and the song of lyrium replaces the magic’s buzz. 

Lavellan stumbles backward, and pain mars her expression, twisting her lips and knitting her brows together. She chokes on air, and Cullen can feel the way her aura instinctively reaches out for mana that isn’t there. Still, she drags in one long, heaving breath to say, “I am not here to hurt. I am here for peace.” She stretches out her hand again to him, and although her hand is shaking now from the aftermath of the smite, her palm is open, up, and empty. 

Cullen stares at her, and for once, he’s at a loss for words. He’s never heard or seen of anyone who would willingly take a divine smite. Even for non-magic users, the smite still leaves effects. For some, it’s flashing dots across vision and pounding headaches, and for others, it’s a first-degree burn or an ache in the bones that lasts for a day. For mages? Cullen has no idea, but it can’t be good. 

As he looks at Lavellan, he can’t help but remember Amell’s face in the nightmare trap. He thinks about all the mages that he’s been responsible for, all the deaths he’s caused, and every face and voice of the ones that will never live or breathe again because of him. He thinks about Meredith Stannard and the virulent hatred she’s bred in him, the demons that tore apart his fellow templars, and the shivering song of lyrium that’s lived in his veins for so many years. And he thinks about the clear skies above Alamarri territory and his quiet dream of being the one to protect others when he was younger. 

For once, Cullen Stanton Rutherford thinks about the cycle of violence he’s lived in for so long. And now, Lavellan tugs off her gauntlets to reveal her bare hands and lifts them up to him again. She’s still shaking from the smite, but she offers him a wan smile. Cullen stares at her before he looks down at her hands. He almost gasps when he sees an ugly scar in the center of her left hand that still hasn’t healed completely. The ridges of her scar look burned over, and the scar stretches down her palm, across her wrist, and Cullen thinks that it probably stretches down to her forearm too.

She’s right. He _is_ tired of fighting. He’s tired of perpetuating this cycle of violence, even if neither of them are forgivable for it. She’s killed his people, and he’s killed hers. 

Cassandra saves him from speaking as she clears her throat. “I’ll keep her in my quarters on close watch, and we can establish a rotation of guards to watch her. Should she try to hurt any of you, I grant permission to engage in combat but only if necessary,” she says crisply. She turns to look at Samson and de Brassard and says, “Generals, Lieutenant Generals, meet in the war tent. Clear out any war maps and tactic sheets before the meeting starts. You have five minutes. The rest of you, return to your positions and tend to the wounded and the dead. Now go.” 

No one moves from their position, but Lavellan slowly lowers her hands back to her sides. She quietly slips her gauntlets back on, hiding her horrific scar from sight, but she says nothing more. Cassandra surveys the crowd before she says even more sharply, “Did you not hear me? I said go.”

People start to dissipate slowly, but the murmurs begin to grow. As for Lady Pentaghast, she grabs Lavellan by the arm, and it seems like a rough jerk of a motion. However, she tilts her head down to whisper something to Lavellan. Cullen suspects that the Right Hand of the Divine has a too-soft heart, but he’s too preoccupied with his own thoughts — thoughts on the war, on all the blood that’s been spilled, on mages and the matter of magic, on fury and anger and grief and regret  — and turns around to walk towards the war tent. The struggle in his heart doesn’t cease to beat against his ribs, but he walks onward.

 

* * *

 

“So, I guess we’re prisoners of war. Merrill and Fenris, was it?”

Merrill looks up from her fiddling, twitching hands and tells the _shemlen,_ “Yes.”

Both of the glyphs are half-snuffed. They still glow white with the strength of the binding, but the purple of nightmares is long gone and scratched out by Merrill’s feet. She went back in and restitched the glyph together, but otherwise, the glyphs stand strong, bolstered by the strength of Scion Alim’s enchantments and the watchful eyes of Merrill and Fenris. She’s not quite sure what Fenris thinks about her decision, but she can’t stand watching those nightmares again. She only hopes that Scion Alim won’t walk by and see what she’s done. 

The woman runs a hand through her short, cropped hair and says too blithely, “Like I said, I’m Hawke, and that’s Anders.” She flaps her hand towards the other _shemlen_. It seems like he was her companion even before this imprisonment. “I’m from Ferelden, you know,” she continues. “That bit of land that the Chantry’s trying to carve out of Alamarri territory? That’s the one. Not sure of how that’s working for them now because of the Second Blight and now this Exalted March bit, but I’m technically living in the Free Marches now.”

“Are you sure you should be talking to your guards this much, Hawke?” Anders asks. He exhales out a long and weary sigh and leans against the nearly invisible walls of the glyph. 

“Oh, it’s just some little conversation,” Hawks snorts. “What are the Dalish going to do about the background of one single mercenary out of the vast numbers of soldiers the Orlesian Empire’s employing?”

Fenris and Merrill exchange looks — a bemused one from Merrill, a tired one from Fenris — and Merrill opens her mouth to say something back. However, she pauses when Anders mutters darkly, “You never know.”

Hawke laughs a little bit to herself and tells him, “Oh, there’s that classic Grey Warden brooding I expect out of you.” She raps her knuckles against the glyph’s walls, right where Anders is leaning against. The white lines twitch a little bit and a thin spark jumps over from Hawke’s glyph to Ander’s, making static electricity crackle across Anders’s shoulders. He lets out a soft, startled yelp, but Hawke only laughs again.

Fenris narrows his eyes at the two of them, but Merrill hurries to whisper in Dalish, “At ease, _lethallan,_ the glyph won’t break from a single hit like that.”

He relaxes by only a portion and flatly asks in Common, “Do you normally talk this much?”

“Big mouth Hawke, that’s what they always say,” Hawke replies with an easy smile.

Fenris cocks his head to the side and lays his hand on the pommel of his sheathed blade. “There are other uses for a mouth other than talking,” he informs her. Merrill gives Fenris a bit of a glare. He’s using his scary voice again, and Merrill doesn’t think that’s particularly necessary right now.

In response, she waggles her eyebrows and croons, “Ooh, getting raunchy, no?” She sounds like she doesn’t care a single whit, but Merrill notices the way her eyes flick over to where Fenris’s hand rests on his pommel. She keeps the smile on though. Impressive. Merrill would probably be shaking in her place.

Fenris doesn’t seem as amused by it, but Merrill finds it utterly and impressively amusing. “I meant silence,” he grinds out.

Hawke has to stifle back a small snort. The look on Fenris’s face is too priceless not to, and Merrill lets out a full laugh. The _shemlen_ woman only shrugs and says, “Oh, but now you’re thinking about it.”

Anders drags a hand down his face as he groans, “Maker, Hawke, you sound like Isabela right now.” He’s hiding a smile too though.

Isabela. That’s a name that Merrill doesn’t quite recognize, but the mention of the name makes Hawke sober for once in her light banter. “Damn,” she says. The word is punctuated by a soft huff of breath, and Hawke’s lips twist downward. “I miss her. Would be lovely to have her with us right now.”

Anders turns towards to face her and tries, “What, so that she could crack more jokes about Sebastian’s belt buckle and whatever else?”  

Hawke hunches forward and in a tight voice, she says, “Of course. Well, actually, it would be bad if she was with us too. More prisoners of war for the Dalish, I guess.” She hazards a glance towards Merrill and Fenris and mutters, “Not that we’re officially affiliated with the Orlesian army.”

Merrill looks over Hawke’s armor and finds nothing that’s remotely reminiscent of Chantry insignia: no Sword of Mercy, no symbol of a holy flame, nothing. If anything, Hawke’s armor is well-worn and unique compared to the same suits of armor that all the Templars and Chantry soldiers seem to wear. Her companion, Anders, doesn’t wear any of the Circle robes that Merrill’s used to seeing on human mages as well. Still, Anders points out dryly, “Hawke, we’re employed by them.”

With mock horror, Hawke gasps and presses her hand to her chest as she gasps, “Temporarily!”

Merrill laughs softly — the barest bit of breath — but it’s enough to catch Hawke’s attention. Merrill clears her throat and says, “You’re very funny, Miss Hawke.”

Hawke waves her hand in a dismissive gesture and says, “Oh, no need for the Miss. I don’t think I’ve been called Miss Hawke in an age and a half.”

“Are you really that old?” Merrill asks with round eyes.

Fenris scoffs beside her and nudges her with his elbow. “No, Merrill, of course she’s not,” he says, dry and thin.

Hawke only bats her eyes at the two of them and says, “I’d like to think I look good for my age. But no, no, I’m just a regular old human who’s only lived a few decades. Nothing like an age.” She leans against the magical barrier, heedless of the way it makes her hair crackle and float up with static electricity. “Anyhow, we’re your only prisoners of war?” she asks.

“Yes,” Merrill admits with a sheepish nod.

“Don’t answer them, Merrill,” Fenris grouses. He doesn’t look as angry as Merrill expected him to be though.

She glances over at him and lightly replies, “Why not? It’s the truth.” She doesn't see much problem with it. It's not like the  _shemlen_ can get out of the glyphs, and they have no one else to talk to other than themselves and with her and Fenris. It would be terribly lonely to be in the glyphs alone, and Merrill can't see anything wrong with nothing more than just a simple conversation. 

Fenris lets out a long and heavy sigh, but Hawke merely says, “Hm, I guess the others died.” Merrill looks over at her, and although her expression remains the same, there’s a brief flash of emotion in her eyes before she tamps it all down. It seems like Hawke is very good at that kind of thing. Merrill wishes that she herself was better at it. 

“No wonder,” Anders says. He looks weary, and he settles his back against the barrier as well. 

“At least all those nasty visions are done and over now,” Hawke says as she shoves a strand of hair out of her face.

“It is still possible,” Fenris warns her. His hand is no longer on the pommel of his blade though, and by this point, Merrill knows Fenris enough to know that he’s lost the dangerous edge to his voice now.

Merrill knows that Fenris can't craft the glyphs like High Commander Surana can, so it seems like an empty threat to her. However, Hawke stills, and now, it’s clear to see that there’s a brief flicker of the old fear in Hawke and Anders’ eyes now. Hawke shudders but tries to cover it up with a winning smile. “My, messere Fenris, what a thought. Let’s move onto more pleasant conversation, as my dear mother would always say,” she says. “She mostly said that whenever my brother and I would start arguing or talking about something like getting another mabari puppy or having a tree-climbing competition. Speaking of tree climbing, I would be terribly careful with that. Carver broke his arm falling from a tree once. Maybe that’s the reason why Mother never let us have another tree-climbing competition again.”

Despite Hawke’s rambling, Merrill cocks her head to the side at the mention of that name. Carver. Merrill remembers the vision she saw in the nightmare glyph before she scuffed part of it out. “Carver,” she says slowly. Hawke stops speaking and freezes mid-word. “Is that your brother?” Merrill asks.

Hawke offers up a smile that’s too tinged with pain for her to even try and cover it up. “Yep, my baby brother, Carver,” she says softly. Her tone turns gentle and fond as she continues, “I had a younger sister too named Bethany. Bethy and Carver were twins.”

“Were,” Fenris suddenly says. His gaze hones in on Hawke, and Merrill can't help but admit that she's curious too. The fondness and the sharp grief in Hawke's features are too much to escape either of them.

“Yes, were, messere Fenris,” Hawke sighs. “Darkspawn and the Blight took them both. First, Bethy and then, Carver.” Anders shifts in his place at the mention of the Blight, and a slight shiver makes the ragged feathers on his cloak shake along with him. He shuts his eyes tightly and doesn't say another word. The words mean more to Merrill though. She starts to string Hawke's words and the visions together.The girl and the boy and the mother. What family would this Hawke have left after that? Merrill can’t imagine a life without Keeper Marethari or her clanmates or her friends. No Lyna, no Tamlen, no Ellana or Mahanon, no one. It seems so horrifyingly lonely. _Hawke_ must be so horrifyingly lonely. Pity makes the corners of Merrill’s lips turn downward, and Merrill shifts her feet side to side.

“Second Blight was a bitch of a time,” Anders suddenly says. His fists curl into tight fists, and it looks like he recedes even further into himself. Merrill studies his face and notes how black his veins look under his pallid skin.

“You can say that again, Anders,” Hawke says. Her voice is sharpened with more bitterness than it ever has in this entire conversation. She looks over at Merrill and Fenris again to ask, “Did the Blight strike here as heavily or no? Spilled out of the Anderfels into the Free Marches and then to Alamarri territory, but I don’t know if it hit you all over here.”

“Yes, the Blight strikes everywhere,” Merrill sighs. “A few towns were lost along the borders, but we managed.” One of them was her town. Keeper Marethari had to lead the others out while a few others like Tamlen and Lyna stayed behind to fend off the darkspawn as best as they could. Merrill knows that she should be grateful that they all survived, but the Blighted wreck of their former home still remains on the borders. Now, instead of Taint, it’s coated over with blood, both elvhen and human. 

“Tevinter was ravaged,” Fenris offers. A vicious smile splits his lips. “The one good thing out of the Blight.”

Merrill blinks at that. “Oh, you’re from Tevinter?” she asks. When Fenris nods, she squints at the silver markings on Fenris’s skin that she doesn’t quite recognize. Maybe they were vallaslin from any leftover clans remaining in Tevinter. She didn’t know that there were any left though. Merrill thinks about Fenris’s lilting accent and wonders if he was ever in a clan before the Dales.

Hawke lets out a soft sigh and says, “Blight’s good for something at least. Bet those magisters were eating their hats with all the effort trying to keep the darkspawn out.”

Fenris snorts a bit and replies, “Not quite eating their hats, but yes, many resources, weakening of the nation, things overlooked when normally watched carefully.”

Hawke eyes Fenris carefully before she shrugs and says, “Good. They’re starting to tighten up again though.” Fenris’s shoulders stiffen, but Hawke continues, “I worked a few jobs in the Free Marches after the Blight that involved Tevinter slavers.” A wily glint creeps into Hawke’s eyes as she says, “Most of them involved me shoving fire up their asses and down their throats.”

Fenris chuckles for the first time during this entire conversation. “Excellent,” he says as he nods towards Hawke “Killing slavers sounds like an excellent activity.” 

“But we’re trapped. Here. As prisoners of war,” Anders cuts in. His tone is flat and dry, and he looks distinctly annoyed by Hawke’s banter now. “

Hawke leans back against the barrier and makes it crackle again as she yawns. She drums her fingers against the white border of the glyph circle as she tuts, “Yes, what a shame, isn’t it? At least we’ll occupy our time with scintillating conversations with our lovely guards. Better than doing nothing.”

Anders’s expression relents a bit, but he still grumbles, “Big mouth Hawke.”

“Hey, I’m good for more than just talking,” Hawke retorts. 

Anders turns around to look at Hawke and replies back, “Like making stupid decisions that get you trapped as a prisoner of war. Like pulling someone out of a trapped glyph only to replace them with yourself. You and I could have been safe and sound with our friends on the other side of the war, you know.”

“When you say it like that,” Hawke mumbles. “You make me sound stupid.” She doesn’t bother turning around to look at Anders.

“Because it _was_ a stupid thing to do,” Anders insists. He presses up against the barrier, and Merrill feels like this is the most serious that he’s looked during his entire time here. He flattens his palms against the barrier, heedless of the way it dangerously crackles as he puts more pressure on it, and says, “And for an arsehole like _Cullen_ too.”

“Well, forgive me and my bleeding soft heart,” Hawke now snaps. She looks over her shoulder and bites out, “At least some of us got out alive. Our friends are safe, and even if Cullen’s got a permanent stick up his arse, he’s alive. Maybe that’ll change his attitude, and besides, we’re both still alive, and that’s something at least.” Hawke slumps back against the barrier once more and mutters, “But don’t get angry at me for _caring_ about people. You out of all people know that’s hypocritical.”

Anders doesn’t say a word but turns back. The barrier molds back into shape, but the energy around it zaps Anders’s hands before it goes completely back to its normal form. Anders winces at the shock of it, but he shakes his hands to get rid of the remaining static magic around it and pulls his knees up close to his chest. “Fine,” he says softly. “You might be right, I suppose. If only caring didn’t land us in such situations like these.”

Hawke doesn’t respond to that, but Merrill and Fenris exchange one more look. Merrill didn't know that Hawke did that, and that changes her estimation of the woman entirely. To be trapped in a nightmare glyph is bad enough. Merrill can’t fathom what it would take to willingly step into one. She studies Hawke and Anders once more and wonders if all _shemlen_ care like this. Then again, if all _shemlen_ cared like this, Merrill isn’t sure if there would even be a war. But still, Merrill glances over at Hawke again and _wonders._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew it's been a while. i feel rusty at writing again, but it feels good to get back into it a little bit.


End file.
